


Overdrive

by Ladtheove



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Bruce Wayne, Alpha Damian Wayne, Alpha Dick Grayson, Alpha Tim Drake, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Fuck Or Die, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Deserves Better, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd Swears, Jason Todd is Red Hood, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, Omega Jason Todd, Protective Damian Wayne, Protective Dick Grayson, Protective Tim Drake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 14:12:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21495595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladtheove/pseuds/Ladtheove
Summary: Jason's biology is a fucking mess about to come crashing down in flames. Be it the pit, the excesive intake of suppressants or his own faulty body,  doesn't matter which is the ultimate culprit,  the only thing that matters is that he's straining at the seams trying to remain himself.However, when his body breaks down, will he be able to accept that not every alpha is out to chain him down?(my very first Batman fic, so not sure if it's coming out alright, but lest give it a chance)
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Jason Todd/Damian Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Jason Todd, Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Comments: 161
Kudos: 767
Collections: Omega Jason Todd Week 2019





	1. First symptoms

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings might change along the way, but don't worry I will warn about it.

One could hope dying once would kill enough of his fucking biology to at least redeem him sterile. One fucking perk! Was that so much to ask for? 

Another wave of pain racked his lower abdomen, and made him grunt at the same time his fist punched in the skull of the last low ranking drug dealer who had tried to play funny with the omega workers of crime alley. At least the satisfying crack of bone breaking, was somewhat rewarding in the face of the last fucking shit in Jason's life. 

Finally, the guy fell to the ground among his other four peers, unconscious and looking at a few months worth of rehabilitation with as many fractures as Hood had inflicted. 

Just a warning really. 

These ones had been terrorizing the omega workers of his territory for an abusive percentage of their earnings, but not real damage whatsoever. Only reason they were getting out alive, should they make a second attempt they would be arriving at the hospital inside a plastic bag. 

And damn, now that the fight was over, the symptoms were making themselves better known, overpowering the adrenaline and battle rage to make his whole body ache, and the air inside the helmet seem oppressive, no matter the filtration system installed. 

Fuck his freaking life. 

He toyed with the idea of taking out his stash from one of the discrete pockets on his leather jacket, and downing at least two tablets of suppressants dry. However, much the Bats liked to accuse Jason of lacking any self-survival instincts whatsoever, he wasn't really into endeavors which could potentially cripple him for life… or plunge him into madness as was the case, at least not when there were not criminal organizations involved. 

He had already surpassed the supposedly safe limit of three months suppressed heaths around nine months ago, toeing the line of the possible consequences, such as infertility, seizures, and his favorite, heat denial mental breakdown with all the perfect care of a bullhead. 

Yet, however a pro he was at denying his own bodily urges, this time his pre-symptoms were getting so noticeable even in the very early stage he was supposed to be at, Jason knew he had pushed too damn far. 

So screw his fucking "work", but Red Hood would have to trust matters into his second hand man for a week or so worth of stuffing himself with fake cock. 

Roy better take care of the gang war brewing between the new drug Lord trying to ascertain his position in the docks, and the old Guy not so happy with a newbie taking a chunk of his particular cake.  
Hood had been keeping the hostilities out of the streets, by means of demonstrating quite "clearly" what happened to those who started a gunfight in a place where innocent people could get shot. But… When the cat isn't home, mouses get to play. 

So yeah, better make the situation crystal clear. Not that he didn't trust the beta, as he was one of the very few he considered friends and a lethal sniper with a bow, but, the redhead could be easily distracted from duty by… Well, many things really. 

He got out of the small smelly alley they had been at, and marched down the darkened streets in search of his motorbike, signaling the calling feature of his helmet, rabidly aware of the sweat dampening his hair and skin, beneath metal, cotton, kevlar and leather, and the pain radiating from his lower abdomen to slowly cramp its way up his back, and down the muscles of his thighs. 

The kevlar chafed against his chest, further irritating Jason as he called Roy, his niples getting so sensitive now, that he knew soon he would start getting wet in ways he would much rather not experience outside his safest hideout. 

"What the.. Jay, it's four of the fucking morning." answered a somewhat groggy male voice, raspy from sleep and irritation. 

"And hello to you too sunshine." Jason smiled crookedly, satisfied at least he wasn't the only one bearing a shitty night. 

"I hope you know I really hate you." Roy huffed, but his words held no reall heat, and his voice had started to pitch barely into the octave Jason knew meant his friend was actually worried "It's something the matter?" 

Better not to beat around the bush. 

"Listen," he cut, serious "I will have to take a few days off, maybe a week, Could you keep an eye in my territory until I get back?" 

There was some more scuffing on the phone that meant the redhead must be getting out of bed. 

"Are you hurt? Do you need my help?" Roy asked, all grogginess having fled his words, replaced by the sharp clarity the sniper was known for. 

And dam if the beta's strong and matter of fact tone didn't go straight through Jason's spine, making him shiver just a hair. He was really, really fucked, if such a nimious stimuli could affect him. 

"No." He gritted his teeth, frustrated with his own flawed biology. "Everything's peachy, just need a few days for some "joyful" time." Jason nearly hissed, because yea, really, TV advertisements and soap operas could praise the ever loving fuck out of being and omega, and experiencing great world shattering heats all they wanted, but any self-conscious one out there would tell you it was all bullshit. 

No orgasm, great it might be, could compensate for the very real threat of losing one's liberty. Heats made omegas too vulnerable, easy prey for forced bonding to happen, and justice didn't protect the victims all it should, no matter what self entitled alfas wished to sprout. 

Another failure in the system. Another reason expeditious intervention was needed. 

"Man, that's awful." God bless Harper for his sharp mind, catching everything with just those few words. "Are you stashed for the time being? I could run a few errands and drop them at your safest in thirty." He offered. 

"No need, I'm all set," Jason declined with a barely there huff of ill hidden warm at the beta´s aptitude "just take care of my rounds. The usual, nothing too much; The drug dealers I told you about, remember to keep an eye on them, let's they decide come out to play, but yeah, that's that."

"Ok, don't worry. Call if you need anything, you heard me?" Such a mother hen. 

Jason huffed affectionately.  
"Yeah, you worrywart, see you next week."

The call disconnected just when he finally arrived at the darkened corner where his motorbike waited, throwing his leg over the sleek metal frame to straddle it….  
The sudden rush of having something big and hard, stashed between his thighs, short circuited his nerves like lighting, arching his back and dragging a breathy groan through his throat, his chuckles becoming white around the handlebars during the second it took for the Red Hood to reign himself in line with a few colorful curses. 

Furious at himself, the vigilant speed down the street like fire was at his heels. 

Continue


	2. Building Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the heat builds.

It's barely been a day and a half since he sequestered himself into his safest hideout; a small house at the outskirts of Gotham. 

Quiet neighbourhood, residential, families and dogs, and cared for parks. So boring, not a place one would think to search for an infamous vigilante with a penchant for killing, and one Jason didn't visit often. 

The one floor so normal house was supposed to remain as secret as possible, away from his usual hunting grounds. A safe haven from when shit really did hit the fan.

And damn, did it hit this time. 

He feels like shit, pained, tired, strung taunt and so damn sensitive, he can barely tolerate the rough fabric of his own bed sheets beneath his naked body. Clothes stopped being an option yesterday morning, when he got awoken from his much deserved after patrol sleep by cramps so hard, he had to swallow down half a dozen painkillers before it got bearable enough to try sleeping again… only for his skin to start crawling. 

After that, sleep and clothes became a long lost hope, along with the wish this fucking heat would pass quickly and leave him be. 

A day and a half and it was still building, the pain that had started at his lower abdomen growing to take hold of his whole freaking anatomy, firing up nerves, tensing muscle into iron cords, and dampening his skin and hair with furnace hot sweat. 

Even so, he was accustomed to pain, knew how to take it, how to use it to fuel his own drive, pain was not the problem here, it was the fucking sensitivity. 

His skin felt like damn paper tissue, so thin and raw any brush was a goddamn torture. And yet, as horny as he felt, as needy, he wasn't getting hard, not damp like he should be. Like any omega into heat should, and had he been an ordinary one he might have been worried, but no, Jason had never been an omega in the usual sense. 

Too big, too aggressive, too independent, so of course not even his heats would fall into the expected line. 

Since his very first, the final climb to his actual heat had always been a tortuous experience of building up pain, thirst, need, until it all came to a excruciating peak of rapture that finally did erald the start of the actual heat; a few days worth of near madness sex drive, until it all calmed down again. 

But this time, the build up was not reaching any peak, it just continued getting worse and worse. 

And it hurt so damn fucking much. 

His insides were scorching hot, dry heaving with need, and he still wasn't… He Wasn't… 

It had never taken so long. 

Jason twisted with a grunt, reaching out tiredly for the bottle of painkillers in the nightstand, the brush of sweat damp sheets breaking a new wave of goosebumps on his already over sensitive skin. For a second he couldn't even open the small plastic container, his fingers trembling around the cap. How pathetic was that? He felt disgusting, the whole situation did. 

Damn cursed heats. 

He gulped down two tablets, not even bothering with the water bottle next in line at the table, letting himself fall back against the pillow with the very vague hope of maybe this time being able to fall asleep, and hopefully wake up when the build up did finally break into something that would actually feel at least good. 

However, barely had his heavy head hit soft plushnes, eyes blissfully closed, when his phone started vibrating from its place at the bedside. 

"Seriously?“ Jason croaked, cracking open one teal colored iris to glare at the offending object, feeling so, so tired and irritated, he had the idea of throwing the freaking device against the wall and be done, when he saw the ID flashing on the screen. 

Oracle. 

He grabbed the phone to his ear. 

"What's happened?" Not even a greeting from Red Hood. There was not need when they both knew she wouldn't be calling if there was any other option. 

"Hood" Just a word. 

She didn't waste time either, her voice so sharp as to cut steel, racking his eardrums and making Jason tremble so hard he had to grit his teeth just to keep the phone on his hand. It wasn't still the need to submit, he wasn't at his heat yet, but he was so close now it was a very near thing. 

For a moment he had the impulse of cutting the line, get out, out, out, before anything else was said. A self protective instinct that got lost a second latter. 

"Batman and Red are in for very bad news, need as much help as they can get, Nightwing is on his way too, but still nearly an hour out, you're the closest." Hood didn't even blink at the implication she had him tracked, she was Oracle, it was expected. 

"What are they facing?“ he asked, voice gone hoarse with tension. If it would be something he could trust into Roy's hands, he wouldn't need to abandon his nest (as pathetically bare it was, not even a cloth piece of his friend on it), so near his heat. 

"Joker has taken Robin" Four words. 

"Send the coordinates to my hub" 

Continue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going with the idea Roy does not have contact with the other bats, as he made friends with Jason as Red Hood already. Will possibly explain that one in the future. Babs (Oracle) doesn't know Jason's "situation". 
> 
> Here it comes, next chapter the bats.


	3. Restless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One bat enters the plot.

“I'm connecting it to our system, you will have live info on his position."-Oracle doesn't waste time, the sound of fast fingers on the keyboard already on the background. 

However…  
“Robin's tracker is still on?“ Jason asks darkly through clenched teeth, already knowing the answer. 

There is a breath of tense silence, and when her response comes is as strained as his question.

" Yeah." 

Because Joker might seem chaos, but he is terrifically intelligent, and this, this is a trap. Cause the brat's tracker still staying on after being taken by the clown? That's not casual.  
That's deliberate. 

It's a fucking neon sign. 

The psycho clown´s way of issuing an invitation to “play”. 

And they both know it.

“Will contact on the way” Jason nearly growls, and it's a fight just to end the exchange as calmly as he does.  
The call disconnects with a brutal crack as the phone finally does hit the wall. 

All his muscles scream with the sudden movement, skin tight, sweat beading down his temple and back, and fuck does it hurt, but at least it's just the burn out ache of heath and rage, and not the cold pain of the memories straining at his control; Those he keeps locked down into the darkest recesses of his mind. 

(the tic tic tic of a clock counting down…) 

He closes his hands into white knuckled fists, and manages to push the barely awakened image, back. Doesn't let himself even acknowledge it was there, grabs hold of the FURY that wants to consume him to keep it that way. 

It's a fucking lose/lose move, the green rage wants to consume him as much as the past, but fucking dammit, he needs it, nearly wants to let it swallow him whole. Can already savour the savage calmness, devoid of any thinking, that would instill in him. How good would feel the after effects when coming back to his senses and finding the gutted corpse of the Joker at his feet. 

However, there are reasons Jason maintains a tight leash on the part of himself affected by the Pit, knows the consequences of letting it rein free, too well. And if he lets fury control him now, the clown's body wouldn't be the only one there when it all ended. 

So all be damned, but he is NOT going to be the cause of the demon spawn's death, be it by his hand in the confusing chaos of the battle, or by the Joker's, warned of his presence by coming in guns blazing and rage consumed. 

Therefore he takes one final deep rumbling breath, fingernails pressing into the now sensitive skin of his palms (of his whole body, really), manages to seat the sharp teeth of his own blood lust, and turns the clever latch hidden at the juncture between wall and floor. 

The wooden panels of half the bedroom part to reveal the hidden stash of weapons of this particular hideout. 

He had stashed this place from when shit did really hit the fan. 

Now, as he looks at the arsenal available, Hood's glad for the insight. 

oOo

(Damian)

He comes to his senses fast, but keeps his breathing slow and even, eyes closed, body lose into the restraints he can feel tightly keeping his arms tied at his back, and to what must be the chair he's sitting in. A barely there taunten of his leg muscles, reveals they are similarly bound. 

The air smells fresh, damp, and yet he can distinguish the dusty scent of cement powder, so it's likely he's at an open construction site. However, what truly irritates Damian's sensitive nose is the lingering stench of at least a dozen other alphas. As expected of the Joker, who much prefers them for his subordinates, with the sole exception of Queen, his alleged omega. 

A petty title for a pathetic woman that had more in common with a lap dog than with an omega, even in this weak western country, where they were supposed to be little more than pretty accessories for their masters. 

Shameful. 

Could she still be called one when the clown had not even scented her? 

He hears the scuffle of soes on concrete a second before a hand grabs him by his short hair, and drags his head up, long nails racking his scalp. 

"A, there, there, little bird, you awake now?" the voice is playful and oddly empty, unsettling, much like its owner. However, he refuses to be affected by such obvious tactics. 

Damian opens his eyes to coldly gaze at the Joker hovering over him through the domino mask still in place. 

The lanky devil looks as manic as expected, green, nearly luminescent eyes wide and sharp, focused on his every move, smile painted a gaudy red of very prominent teeth. He studies Damian like he is prey. 

An error he's all willing to teach the clown about, the moment he gets an opening. He inhales intuitively, trying to catch any hint in his enemy's scent. 

Still as close as he is, he doesn't even smell the clown, but that was not so strange even if slightly infuriating, seeing as the psychopath has barely any scent whatsoever and the place is full with the odours of others. 

Here it is why and alpha shouldn't bred with another of the same kind. 

Damian knows his alleged "brothers" believe him self-entitled and most possibly a sexist, but here he is, facing the very argument of his; a creature with all the viciousness an alpha is capable of, and no protective drive to temper it whatsoever. 

A pitiful thing bereft of its own scent, incapable of smelling others the way it should, driven to the very edge of society by its shortcomings, and in the end a monster. 

There is a reason alpha to alpha pregnancies are so rare and difficult to carry to term. There is a reason his mother had to tamper with genetics for his very own conception, lest he be born faulty from the two alphas siring him. 

It hadn't been the case. Mother made an excellent work; Damian is more than faultless, he is improved in both sense of smell and instincts. However the exception does not invalidate the rule. 

As if to give credit to his point, he feels the press of a blade to the neck of his Robin uniform. 

"Seems to me you are thinking toooooo much" green tresses bounce around a bony white face, as the singsong goes on, "let's make you some less mooooody."

And so the play begins. 

oOo  
(Jason) 

Getting dressed is a torture on it's own, made only bearable because he is so fucking pissed pain and sensitivity barely register. What does register, the moment he starts downing kevlar and leather from the racks, it's the sweat beading on his skin. 

He is drenched, thin layer of dampness covering his very hot body (damn he is gonna fry inside his usual gear) and matting his hair like hes a fucking race horse at the end of the line. Usually and before a mission, Jason would be taking a shower and applying spray scent blockers, just like any other bat. 

Just like B. That's one of the first lessons any Robin learns to implement, hide your designation, make yourself smelless, and you would not only better protect your identity, but actually be fucking untraceable, and with the appropriate training, become a shadow your enemies won't see coming until it's too late. 

Jason looks at the clock hanging on the wall, it's already been 5 minutes since Oracle called…  
"Fucking dammit!“ 

Damian doesn't have all that much time, but neither can he go in stinking of omega in heat, no matter Jason wasn't technically at it yet, he knew how he smelled at the moment… or could he? 

A crazy idea starts taking root. 

Everyone knew the Joker's sense of smell was nearly non-existent, and he liked to surround himself with alpha goodies when he decided some minions were in order.

Alphas that would be utterly distracted by the enticing aroma of an omega in heat… a risky tactic, as they would try to take him down in ways much crueler than a mere bullet could get. His stealth maneuverability would be much reduced too, and he himself would be sensitive to their scents as well, could be pushed into true heat by the presence of too many alphas, and into a kind of vulnerability Jason's not sure he can overcome all that easily. 

But maybe with the filters inside the helmet blocking his sense of smell… he could actually pull this crazy thing. 

"Only one way of knowing, yeah?" 

Continue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning to advance more of the plot this chapter, but I decided no more waiting, better publish already and continue with it in the next.  
Hope you liked Damian's presentation.


	4. Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason arrives on site.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so I have been reminded about how sometimes Damian's own opinions depicted on his pov fragments might be confused with actual facts of this world I'm creating. 
> 
> So just to be clear, being born from two alphas doesn't automatically make you a moster. It's a rare occurrence since alpha's genetic code is better suited to integrate with that of a beta or an omega, and might result in disabilities such as is the Joker's case were he nearly lacks scent, and has a very underdeveloped sense of smell.
> 
> But a disability doesn't make anyone a monster. Just to be clear on this.
> 
> On the other hand as always I again fell short in my plot schedule, still I hope you like this. Next chapter for sure will have more Bats making an appearance. 
> 
> Thanks you all for your care and cheer, and I hope you are having some great holidays.

(Jason)

By the time he comes down to the garage, helmet in hand, Jason is as prepared as he could get with the shitty circumstances they had been dealt; sniper rifle strapped at his back, pair of glocks on the holsters under his armpits (not his usual easier to drag from, thigh ones, but he doesn't kid himself on his ability to wear those at the moment), and another dozen surprises, pack his jacket's lining, boots and belt. 

It will get nasty if he has to use some of those, but Hood is past the point of giving a fuck. 

His bike waits where it got parked nearly two days ago, next to the bench clustered with second hand mechanical pieces he mostly uses for repairs. So it shouldn't have been so much a surprise punch to the nose, when the stench of oil and grease hit him, the second he came near. 

Nausea tries to turn his stomach, but there is nothing there to expulse save the two tablets he took half an hour ago, and those he fights to keep down. 

Will need them. 

Grunting, Jason downs the helmet fast and hard, instantly breathing better into the filtered air, as the hud powers up with a nearly non-existent whine. 

For a second there, he acknowledges the smell shouldn't have affected him as much a it did, same as with the pain still racking his muscles, and the building need that continues taking momentum.  
The symptoms are only getting worse the longer it takes for his heath to kick start. 

(Still soft, dry where he should be damp, and fucking drenched everywhere else, so hot its like boiling inside out.)

Fucking dammit!

He will worry about the infuriating cycle once the demon spawn is back at the Bat's nest, and hopefully the Joker two feet underground, (unlikely with Bruce involved, but one can only dream). 

Makes a last check of the gear, better adjusting the strap of the rifle, and knowing what's coming, braces for the rush of instinct when mounting the sleek steel frame, internally cursing the day he decided buying a bike instead of a car was such a good idea, (even if he does love the shitty piece of tech). 

It's worse than last time. 

His spine groans under the force of the arch it wants to bend into, whole body shuddering, trembles violently for a moment, and it's like someone has put a fork to his intestines and is trying work them like spaghetti. 

"Fuck, fuck, JODER!" 

The pain is excruciating. 

Need ricochets up a few noks, and it's about the most twisted roller coaster of; wanna fuck and my insides are melting not in the nice way. With the fanfuckingtastic addition of, as desert dry as he is, feeling like a burn where he sits on the saddle. 

A new sheet of sweat breaks across his flesh, as Jason dry heaves, managing a second time, in as many minutes, to keep the painkillers down. Suddenly grateful he hadn't been eating at all since the night before. 

So fucking weak now, he won't be much help even if he manages to arrive on time. 

The second that thought blossoms in his brain, Jason reels back growling.

There are THINGS Jason does not do, letting the Joker have any shoot at another Robin, being up there in the top 1, alongside any kind of rapist walking out alive on his watch. 

The notion of what could happen, of what is likely already happening, makes him see green, has the rage that had subsided as he got prepped, resurfacing. 

It's enough to push instinct back. Teeth clenched so hard they chatter, as Jason makes himself straighten, hands around the handlebars so tense, they might have broken the metal, had they had enough strength. 

Finally, the door of the garage opens at his helmet's command, letting him leave behind the small house as he speeds down the quiet residential neighborhood, bare of anyone at this time of night,(proper citizens go early to bed), as advantageous now, as it was when he arrived nearly two days ago. 

Even if someone came awake by the roaring of the engine, no one would have the time to make it to a window and see the crime lord speed past them, and into Gotham proper, before he's already gone. 

They will blame some punk kid. 

Under the first neon lights of the city razing past, Red Hood chases down the blinking point in the map of his hud.  
oOo

(Damian) 

Pain.  
Pain is understandable, pain is base, easy to account for, leash and control. He knows all there is to know of it. Mother made sure, way before he was released into his father's pack. 

Therefore, this should be nothing, something to bear until he either scapes, or father comes to his aid.

In the meantime he takes stock of the rooms occupants; the Joker, not far away, working on something at a side table, pushed against one of the only two finished walls of the space under construction they are at, and Quinn, having arrived not long after the clown started his play, attentively bend at his side. The alphas he knows by smell must be somewhere in the vicinity, are not visible. 

There is little else at hand. 

He has already observed a square drop of some hundred meters at his right (most surely for an elevator in the near future), a tangle of exposed pipes and support beams above, and what appears to be some docen small rooms in various degrees of completion around them, offices most likely. 

When he manages to evade the bindings, he would have places to use as cover (stealthy as he is), that is, as long as his injuries don't pose much of a liability. 

There's warm trailing down his now bare torso, riluets he knows to be blood, falling from the ragged places where the serrated knife cut through armour and into flesh, as the clown worked to remove the top of his Robin's uniform. 

Some of the cuts are deep, but not near enough vital points, or bleeding so heavily, as to warrant concern. 

Friction burns he can track to where the ropes cut too tight against skin. Expected, as he works slowly into freeing himself.  
Joker, or one of his goons, might have taken his globes before tying him when unconscious, removing with them Damian's carefully hidden blades, but it's wishful thinking that such a thing would manage to keep an Al Ghoul down. 

He is trained to scape much harsher confinement, even if it will take time to remove the bindings. 

The most pressing matter are his arms, slowly getting numb from cut blood circulation. That could get slightly problematic, if he finds himself unable to react as fast and precisely as needed when he does manage to cut lose. Hence why he lets himself stir some, flexing into the bonds as to retain mobility, as subtly as he can manage. 

It might look like nervous fidgeting from a outsider. 

No sooner has he thought this, that the grating little singsong the psychopath had been humming all the way, stops, and his lanky figure abandons what he was fiddling with on the table to stalk over, this time a syringe in hand, until he stops barely a feet away. 

In his position, tied to a chair, Damian has to lean his head back, just to catch the unsettling gaze directed his way. 

It's annoying. 

He bows to break both the clowns legs, so he experiences the delightful pleasure of having to bend his neck so, just to look at his grin. 

"So, now that you are feeling less moody birdie, let's speak about why you're here, shall we?" the clown's voice grats, full as it comes of false syrupy care. Long neck gracefully twisted to the side to better observe Damian.  
His resemblance to a two legded feline is remarcable, yet unwelcome. Damian likes cats, he does not appreciate the aberration studying him. Less so when it's evident it means to inject him with the dubious substance on hand. 

He squints some, trying to assess what could possibly contain the crystal tube, but its very light bluish colour doesn't reveal much. 

"Now, now, not spoiling the surprise baby bird." the psychopath tuts at him, as to a recalcitrant kit. Damian might be young, but he is not child, has the blood on his hands to prove his passing of age. The platitudes unnerve him now as much as they do when coming from western, spoiled omegas, at his father's parties. 

Even so, a deprecating;  
"Tt" it's all he offers. 

Doesn't see the use of giving words to a lunatic. 

Predictably, the psychopath doesn't take it well. His lips twist some, and his pupils contract into tween needlepoints of coldness. 

"Seems to me Bats didn't teach you manners." he speaks contemplatively, looking at Damian like he's nothing but raw matter to play. "Must be all the work, with catching criminals and taking care of so many chicks. Nowadays it's like he can't stop collecting Robins." purses his obscenous red lips in mock concern, and touches one long purple painted nail to his waxy cheek.  
Then, suddenly, a cruel smile opens itself across the white face, blooming like a crimson knife."Then so, why don't we help Batsy take care of his nest? I believe what he needs is a nice omega his baby birds can imprint to. If only we had one… Oh, but we do, don't we? Harley dear?" he looks at his back, and on clue the blonde omega bounces to her alphas side, all smiles of adoration and light feet. 

Even from across the room, before coming near, she had smelled much too sweet, clogging, evident the use of scent enhancers. So strong the sick sirupy aroma, it masks any other subtleties to the point he can't even tell her state of mind, (details of surrounding people he usually finds easy to distinguish), and now that she has come near, the stench racks Damian's sensitive nose with its artificiality. 

Disgusting. 

An omega's scent should never be so debased. 

Even her voice is much too forced, pinched high and too childish.  
"Yess munchkin?" she asks her alpha. 

Damian feels the snarl he has been containing, as to avoid being much noticed when working to gain freedom, nearly tear his stoick scowl. 

Thankfully she doesn't seem to have eyes for anything but the clown, and he too seems now some distracted, looking at her with noticeable less care (if there is such thing as care in the monster at all). 

"I believe you asked for a pup some time back?“ Joker intones. 

Damian's blood runs suddenly cold. 

Quinn smiles whole heartedly.  
"Yes, pudding. Have you thought about it then?" She sounds so hopeful nausea clenches Damian's insides. 

Surely he is not thinking of…surely they won't… 

The mere idea makes his skin crawl. 

"Yeah, yeah, I did. Well, this one is a little older than you wanted, I know, but beggars and all that" 

Quinn nearly squeals with delight. 

Suddenly a claw like hand buries itself in his nape's short hair, twisting his head savagely back. The cold point of the needle touches his neck.  
"There now, birdie." Joker croons, so bend above him, his breath touches his face."Say hi, to your new mama." 

Damian bares his teeth and snarls, his hands nearly free now. 

oOo

(Jason) 

The place turns out to be a skyscraper under construction, in one of those shitty neighborhoods of Gotham that someone thought would be nice to recuperate.  
Push all the old, starved for better, residents, out, and tear everything down, in order to built a new set of shiny crystal and metal blocks of assholery. 

Great, truly beautiful. 

One of this days Jason should press his very idea of what recuperating should be, right into the cranium of one of the premium assholes responsible. The notion, however, is a fleeting thing, fast forgotten in the chaotic feverish haze of motion at arrival. 

By then, adrenaline and green battle rage have pretty much taken over his mindset, and his body's demands can go fuck themselves for all he's willing to cater to them. Brain changing gears every few seconds, as he contemplates strategies, different sceneries coming to the forefront, and others being discarded. 

After hiding his bike into a dark dead end, he makes himself climb to the roof of an old decrepit building, barely two storeys tall, across the street from the site.  
It's a good enough vantage point from witch to stalk the situation, once the infrared vision on his helmet is activated. 

"Let's see how many fuckers he's brought" 

A dozen or so figures appear as red smears on various points across the building, seemingly prepared for some nasty surprise. However, a congregation of three of them in the upper levels catches his attention; there's one seemingly seated, and actually smaller than the rest. His hud helpfully blinks with the signal of Robin's tracker. 

"Got you little brat." he murmurs activating the comm. "O, I'm on site."

She doesn't take a second to answer, voice still tense above the ongoing sound of fast tipping taking the background.  
"Good. I have taken control of all cameras in the vicinity, if I see something worthwhile you will know." This time her voice doesn't affect him as much, maybe because of the adrenaline, maybe cause of something else entirely. Jason doesn't let himself contemplate the unexpected lucky patch, just rolls with it. 

"Nice. Tell the Bats there's a dozen shitheads on site, and two more in the upper levels, where it's supposed to be Robin," Won't put pass the clown to just have cut out the tracker, and left someone else to spring the trap. But the idea does lack the dramatics he usually prefers, so let's hope that's actually the demon spawn and not someone else sitting his place."most likely those two are Joker and Queen."

"Got it, but would be easier if all of you shared the same comm line. Less chance of someone encountering something they shouldn't have because I have to run contact." she asks again. 

It's not the first time Babs has suggested sharing info between them, instead of through her, but Jason is realistic. If he has to hold a conversation with the santactimonous Bats, they would devolve into a fight one minute in. That not taking into account the Bat itself. And hey, he does like the tacit deal they have going now, where everyone remains in their territories, and no one minds anyone's business, as long as he keeps the dead count to a minimum and they can't be tracked to him. 

It's a win win all around, so no, he won't be talking to them, less than ever now; A few of the most intense alphas of Gotham talking business in his ear so near his heat.. Sure, fuck it, That's not gonna happen. 

The only reason he's here is because the magnitude of the threat warrants it, and that's that. 

"Sorry but no can do"  
There's a short moment of near silent rest on the comm, where Jason thinks she must have been sighing. 

"As you wish." She intones, and he knows it means she's letting it pass cause there's pressing matters to attend to, but that she has made note of it, and will most likely nag Hood about his lack of communication in the near future. 

Fantastic. 

There is a support beam good enough for his grappling gun on sight. 

"I'm going in. Remind the Bats to wear their filter masks." he presses and cuts the line.  
Lets them think its because of the possibility of Joker toxin, and not Jason's own pheromones running rampant. Last thing he wants now, is for them to catch fact of his heat, before he has the chance to end this. Hopefully, by then, the Bats will just be arriving on place, preferably after Jason has already run back to his nest. 

Continue


	5. Dizziness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim enters the equation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again, I hope you all are having wonderful holidays.  
As always I'm late with my plot developing, at least I managed to introduce another bat, hopefully Tim has come out alright. 
> 
> He's a character pretty difficult to write for me, so I will be grateful to know your opinion on his depiction.
> 
> Have a great new year and read you soon.

-THREE HOURS BEFORE-

It happens smoothly, so much so they don't see it coming until it's already too late. 

Nightwing is in Bludhaven when Batman and Robin get a call about a Scarecrow attack.  
They rush over, filtering mask on, to a mob already running across the streets of the commercial district, some trying to escape their own invisible monsters, others trying to leave the infected zone.  
Cars crass against one another to avoid the bystanders getting on the road. 

It's utter chaos. 

Thankfully the batmobile holds a stash of generic toxin antidotes they can use, a mix of neutralizers best delivered into the bloodstream. Should be enough for the ones affected. 

Only problem is how the infected are hurting themselves and others in the frenzy of hallucinations, too irrational for the injection to be easily administered. 

Under the circumstances Batman calls Red Robin in, when in the middle of his own patrol, to help get them all before anyone is seriously wounded, or manages to get away, where, left for the venom to wear down on its own, could lose their minds permanently.

The three of them separate in order to work faster, all the way trying to locate Scarecrow, the supposed culprit, who must had been around, but hadn't made an appearance until then. 

A perfect chain of events, so smoothly planned, not even Tim saw it coming until half an hour in. 

oOo

(Tim Drake) 

Tim notices Damian's silence on the comm ten minutes into their solo efforts, but at the moment he's too occupied wrestling innocent people into forcibly administered medication, to think anything of it. 

The break is even welcome.  
Joined missions with Batman and Robin always leave him feeling raw, since the insufferable teen has made habit of diminishing anything Tim related, again and again, until he either risks losing his temper, or just walks away. That's not taking into account how he acts at the manor. 

Damian's jealousy over him is something sharp, vicious, and it doesn't look about to abate anytime soon. 

It's exhausting.

So the oddness of radio silence doesn't even register as worrying until fifteen minutes later, when he asks about Robin's situation, and the brat doesn't answer. 

By then Tim knows something is wrong. Scarecrow is a perfectionist who plan's well beforehand, his schemes are terrifying but always seamlessly brought to life. And this chaos that is taking place? Doesn't have any discernible pattern. 

It's not like the fired university teacher, and that, alongside Damian's silence… 

He warns both O and B, but then Scarecrow finally decides to make a furious appearance, and all of them know for sure something is up. 

The old psychologist comes rabid at them, laughing raucously, barely coherent. 

His suspicions turn from worrying, to downright blaring alarms, and he hopes for all it's worth this is not "someone" else's hand on play. 

A chill rakes Red's guts as Batman throws himself into battling the new threat, and he takes over containing and medicating the affected mob. A seamless move born from the years of working together. 

Doesn't need to look at Bruce to know he's thinking as Tim, reaching the same dreadful conclusions, can already tell by the tension on his shoulders, and the way his hits gets sharper, careful, as if he's consciously controlling himself to not inflict more than the necessary pain. 

Red remembers the Batman after Jason's death, doesn't want to get to know the one that will turn out, if Damian gets killed. 

So he works, wrestles people, administers injections, stops the ones that try to escape without treatment, and waits for Barbara to investigate Robin's whereabouts, as the confrontation between Batman and Scarecrow becomes tricky against an opponent that is not easy to read or anticipate. Mind sharp, attentive, to any help he could offer, and whichever noise coming from the comm. 

"Please" he thinks "Let it be anyone else, anyone but him" 

But when O contacts them five minutes latter, her voice hard as steel, he already knows... 

"Robin's tracker is out, so I hacked the nearby traffic cameras. Managed to get what happened to him."

oOo

Into the screen, the grainy recording of a darkened alley corner replays. 

Robin's limp body being dragged away, a dark tall shadow, and just before leaving the field of vision, for a second, a sadistic curve of crimson lips.

Barbara's blood feels icy.

"Joker has taken him."

oOo  
-NOW- 

(Jason) 

He comes in through the third floor of the skyscraper, finished enough to hold some cover in the form of under construction halls and rooms, but not so much so, as to actually have a facade.  
Landing without anything to break on the way in, and with the training he has had for two lives now, his arrival is silent as a shadow, even in combat boots, and gives him the advantage of surprise. 

At least for now, Jason's not stupid enough to believe his presence will go unnoticed for longer than a few minutes. Not in a place without air filters. Hell, not even complete walls to hinder his spreading pheromones. He's drenched in sweat under leather and body armour, it's a wonder they don't come looking for him a minute in. 

There are reasons an omega in heat doesn't leave his nest, apart from the obvious ones. The pheromones they let out are, literally, an advertisement for "Here, horny omega, please Fuck." But it's just that, a natural warning for possible suitors, and a call for their own pack when in one. So yeah, people knows, but they are not forced to respond, to do anything at all. 

And yet, there are always shitheads who don't care all that much about controlling themselves. After all, if you are out in such a state, well, should have known better, shouldn't you, bitch? 

Jason is counting on the ones here being some of those. All in all there is just a few types of fucks, desperate, or crazy enough, to work for the clown, and none of them are the self-restrained kind. 

His lips twist darkly under his helmet, as the first set of footsteps come his way. 

oOo 

-HOUR AND A HALF AGO-

(Tim Drake) 

He manages to administer the antidotes efficiently, leaves people unconscious, carefully put out of the way. But even if he makes a sizable dent on the number of infected, there's still people trapped into the cars that had been involved in the multiple accidents along the road. 

Desperately they try to leave by any means necessary, breaking windshields from the inside, racing past… but with the toxin present in the air… Running just makes the venom pump faster through lungs and into the bloodstream. And the number of shots the has left is running low. 

He keeps track of the fight between Scarecrow and Batman in fits and spurts. It's like seeing B go against a rabid nightmare. No matter what he hits, or how he does it, the other doesn't even seem to notice. It's evident the only way to put him down will be to leave the ex-profesor unconscious, but B is having trouble pinning him in place long enough for it. 

He's too rushed, not taking proper advantage of the openings left. O's words affected him too much. And Tim can't help, needs to keep trying to contain the spread of the toxin. 

Red can't but think Joker's plan must be this, Batman and Red Robin trapped in one place, unable to leave, to help, as he works whatever scheme on Robin. 

Dammit!! 

Damian could be dying, or worse. Tim read Jason's death's report, shaw the photos…  
Something sits heavy on his stomach. He doesn't like the demon spawn, more than once has wished him gone, but not this way, not at the hands of the same psychopath that killed and gutted all Jason was as Robin, (so fierce, bright, and good in all the ways Tim believes matter) and into a kind of monster. 

If he could turn Jason into the Red Hood, what could he do with a kid that's already halfway into a serial killer? 

They need to get to Damian. 

O contacts them ten minutes later; Robin's tracker is somehow back on. Maybe he had been in an insulated place, and now whatever the reason, he's not.  
Doesn't matter. 

She's called Nightwing back at Bludhaven, time of arrival, one hour out. Insufficient, too much can happen in sixty minutes. Steph and Cas aren't even in the country, taking a mission halfway across the world. 

Tim feels himself tense with every minute that passes since, doesn't let himself keep count of them, focuses on the mission, on getting it done as fast they can. 

Then, suddenly, Oracle's voice comes again through the comms, hard as steel;  
"I'm bringing Hood in" is a statement, not a question.

Batman falters for a second, catches a punch with the mouth, but goes on like nothing, his next hit lands fast and too hard, and has Scarecrow scrambling to stay upright. He answers through the comm calmly, but Tim can see the tell-tales… 

"No." Batman decrees, "Leave Hood out of this" 

Understandable, and under other circumstances Red would have agreed. Jason is more stable now, than he was a year ago, kills only in a very few truly shitty cases, keeps the darkest part of Gotham more or less steady, quarantined, and guards himself away from the family like he himself is some kind of disease that could spread into them, or maybe the disease are them, and he's the one trying to keep himself clean. Whatever the case, it's rare the moment one of them catches eye of the elusive rogue. 

He's uncharted territory, they don't know him, don't know how he will react if found in the same room as the Joker. He could lose it again, recede into the madness of the Pit. Was it worth the possibility of losing two Robins to the clown, just to maybe, at that is a big if, resque one? 

But if they don't manage to take Damian back, whatever comes to be of Bruce won't be pretty. Batman already overcame Jason's death once, can do it a second time. However, his own blood son's… 

Barbara seems to think the same. 

"I already did, he's on his way." 

Tim cuts any possible answer.  
"What's done it's done B, let's just finish this up and go help them."

oOo 

-NOW-

(Damian) 

Suddenly a claw like hand buries itself in his nape's short hair, twisting his head savagely back. The cold point of the needle touches his neck.  
"There now, birdie." Joker croons, so bend above him, his breath touches his face."Say hi, to your new mama."

Damian bares his teeth and snarls, his hands nearly free now.

\--------------

The injection penetrantes his neck fast and savage, and as the cold contents enter his bloodstream, Damian finally breaks his arms free. 

He lashes out fast as the snake mother made him, strikes the clown on the wrist that holds the injection, tears the syringe from his own trachea, and tries to stab it into the aberration's left eye. However the clown is swift too, more than he thought, more than Damian can keep up with with his legs still bound to the chair. 

His attack misses the poisonous green iris by a hair, racks the needle across one cheekbone spraying blood across his chuckles.  
It's not enough.  
He should had been able to inflict a fatal wound with the enemy as near as the monster had been. 

Mother would be disappointed. 

It's but a second of a thought, but the shock that tears through his insides is immediate. Something soft splits were there shouldn't be any give left, and it's like he's three again, fallen in the cold stone floor of the training room, beaten, tired, hurt, and doesn't understand why mother is not helping.  
A whine builds at the very back of his throat, one he manages to strangle between his clenched teeth. 

Dread, as he confirms what he suspected, turns his blood into ice. 

This is no venom, it's a medical concoction for orphaned tilfs (babies), mean to make them receptive to accepting a new omega as their nurturing mother. Small ones need scenting and contact as much as feeding and care, but as they can instinctively recognize their birth mother (something ingrained into their smell memory even before being born), they don't always take well to a new caretaker beyond those of their pack. And when there is no pack, no mother left… 

Many a kit has died by refusing to be feed by an estranged one, even when adoption, or instituted care, could be provided.  
Therefore, in time medications to atone for the issue had been developed. Those that kick start the ingrained instinct of bonding usually reserved for newborns. A cocktail of overbearing hormones resembling the levels a kit would experience inside the womb, that allow for imprinting on the one that offers scent and contact enough. 

It's mean for very small kits, not beyond a year of age, the consequences on an older one whose scent glands has already fully developed… The consequences on himself… He could very well die from the shock to his system…Lose his mind in the crash of his leveled hormones against the artificial ones introduced. Or… If it works as it should on a tilf… 

The moment of distress induced instronspection, costs Damian much; He doesn't react in time as a hard kick lands on his chest, sends him and the chair skidding to the floor. 

Landing against concrete is brutal, takes all the air from his lungs, leaves him heaving, slightly dizzy… Too dizzy, and getting worse by the second. Quinn's too syrupy scent pounds against his brain like a drum… makes him retch, were before it had only been nausea. He manages to keep his stomach contents in, but vomiting is a very near thing. 

He feels shick, knows it's not from the hit, even if he took it bare chested. The shot it's acting too fast, he's already getting aftershocks barely seconds into being drugged. 

A sudder racks his whole body, feels too hot, yet clammy, knows the start to a fever. Needs to get away before this really does kill him. Doesn't let himself contemplate the alternative. It doesn't bear thought. 

He WILL break free. 

In a split second Damian registers his ribs as bruised, his cranium aching where he landed, the syringe broken on his hand, leaving glass shards struck on his flesh. He can use those, the pain he discards. 

The clown stalks over quick as no one he has known before, so Damian racks the bigger shard of glass on his hand across the ropes on his legs. The movement is ugly, if not for the reinforced material of his Robin uniform there would have been tears on his flesh. It doesn't matter as long as he can get up. 

Does so the same instant the clown closes in, and has the distinct feeling that, had the other wanted, he could have taken Damian before he managed as much. 

The psycho is playing with him, much like a predator with wounded prey. He does not appreciate the role. 

The second the monster is near enough, he lashes out. 

Continue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter hopefully some sexyness will ensue.


	6. Hot spell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian meets Jason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so I wanted to apologize for the tardiness, I have been ill for a week or so and didn't have much will to write. As a result this chapter got shorter than I expected and the sexyness didn't occur. But next one for sure we will have it here.
> 
> Even so, we get a little inside info on Nanda Parbat, the shadow city where Damian stayed his childhood. I know that's not canon, and I'm changing Nanda Parbat wholly to suit my tastes for the fic. I hope you don't mind all that much. 
> 
> Dick finally does appear for a very short time. Finally all the Bats on place! Jujuju
> 
> Read you soon!

(Jason) 

It's too damn easy. 

He waits, rifle set, hidden by the shadows of an unfinished wall, as the alpha comes around the corner of the hall; a tall male, even if not as tall as Jason, with black greasy hair that hasn't seen a shower in days, wide somewhat muscled shoulders, and a pouch-like stomach. 

Seriously, the quality of goons nowadays is going down the drain. 

Doesn't improve his assessment that the fucker comes at his hiding place glassy eyed, murmuring stupid shit like: "There, there little babe, come out. I will take soooo good care of you." and already straining hard on his jeans. 

That's fucking pathetic on a whole new level...Was the guy drugged? He looked high enough to start talking to the walls any second now. 

At least now he's near enough, Jason recognizes the lump of a gun hidden on the belt under the shirt at the alpha's lower back, along a curious set of little purple devices hanging in a string from one of the belt holes. Those look like crystal. Nothing good comes out of crystal unidentified shit. 

So maybe let's ask some questions. 

The moment the man gets level with his hiding spot, Hood knocks him in the face with the butt of the rifle hard enough to break his nose, and maybe dislodge a tooth or two. Shitface goes down like nothing. 

Jason doesn't waste time in zip tying his hands at the back, taking both gun and the string of crystal balls, before dragging the unconscious would-be rapist, into the shadows with him. Once secure again into the hidden spot, proceeds to palm him down in search of more weapons and communication devices. 

Just a rundown phone comes out, a battered thing Hood doesn't waste time in dismantling and crushing under his boot, just to make absolutely sure.   
By then, his catch had started stirring, so he does the "charitable" thing and pushes a hand against his mouth to keep the thug silent, as he draws out one of his wicked blades, crouched above the man's heavy belly.   
Bleary eyes flutter open, irises kind of bluish, but watery, like fish, Jason expects them to widen in terror, but instead they remain unfocused, trained in him like magnets. Hungry and hazy. Yeah, definitely drugged. One can no longer even trust a thug to hold some professionalism. 

On the other hand it could be an advantage if he's lucid enough to answer his questions, but not so much as to try lying. 

Well then. 

"Let's make things clear," he murmurs darkly, through the voice filtering of the helmet, "I will ask some questions, you will answer them, and if don't like what you have to say...." He puts the serrated edge into the alpha's lower belly, where the shirt had riled up over the overflowing fat, hinting at other, nearby, anatomy pieces. "Well," Hood continues, pressing against bulging flesh to extract the first, thin red line, of blood, "I'm very creative with the knife." 

By then, the man's eyes are as terrified as he wants. 

Good. 

oOo 

(Damian) 

He goes for the legs, kicks low, seemingly intend on making the clown fall, remove the advantage he holds being taller and stronger than Damian. The movement makes his dizziness worse, his muscles buckle, but it's necessary, so he makes himself do. 

The psycho ducks, fast.

That's what Damian had waited for.   
Same moment the monster moves, he throws the bloody crystal shards on his hand, at his face, blinding him for a second, the second he calculates to kick the aberration's chest, hard enough to send him tumbling down the hundred meters drop of the lift tunnel, he had moved near to, when dodging Robin's first attack. 

However, just as Damian draws back with all his strength, strike about to make contact, something blunt and much to heavy impacts forcefully against the side of his head, sending him to the ground limp as a rag doll, blackness stuttering his vision. 

He had not expected Quinn, focused as he had been on the clown.

This time he can't hold in the vomit, barely manages to get on his side, so as not to choke on tonight's half-digested dinner, before emptying his stomach on the floor. Bile burns his trachea going out, makes him cough. He can no longer contain the tremors rocking his muscles…   
He feels feverish, mind getting hazy… 

Suddenly there is the clown's homega kneeling by him. Her enhanced artificial smell making the nausea worse, pulling whatever is left on his guts, forcefully out. The sense of WRONG so strong, his skull feels about to shatter. 

"Oh my, are you okay sweetie?“ the syrupy falsetto accent makes him cringe, makes him shake harder. Something is breaking inside, and Damian feels powerless to prevent it."So sorry, baby, but you should obey papa. He knows best" 

The words unnerve him, make him snarl, Quinn might sounds genuinely concerned, but she was the one to struck Damian with her hammer. 

Then the madwoman dares put her hand on his hair.. . Her fingers too slim, her touch much too soft, to be that of mother's… 

Suddenly it's like being engulfed by a raging inferno, his instincts scream, RAW, forcefully awakened. "WRONG, not mother!!", Damian snaps. 

Grabs the intruder's wrist and twists, swift, brutal, bone grinds against bone, she screams…  
The Joker kicks him in the back strong enough to crack ribs, takes what's left of his breath. Pain smooths the screech of Damian's instincts. 

His hold on Quinn slacks, needs both hands to push against his ribs as he fights to inhale, so bone shards move as little as possible under his choked panting, and the worsening shivers that shake his muscles.   
In the feverish moment, somehow, he registers the stickiness on his fingers, pressed into the still open wounds on his torso, and knows it as blood. He's distracted, dizzy… 

"There there chap" Joker crouches in front of him, pats Damian on the check now that he's too weak to do much. "You must not talk back to mommy, will make her sad, you know? How about you both hug and make it better?“ the suggestion makes Robin's flesh finally break into cold sweat.   
And as he's grabbed against his will, helpless. Barely conscious, catching himself hoping father will come. He can't but wonder if this was how Todd felt when Joker was about to kill him. 

If so, he thinks he understands now. 

oOo 

(Jason) 

"O, the fuckers are carrying a new Joker toxin. Crystal balls, supposed to let out some kinda goo when broken, work both like gas and into skin contact." Jason relais, twirling one of the purple bombs he took from this first alpha, on his hand. 

"Copied" Oracle answers after a beat, slower than she had the whole night. She must be listening into the Bat's too, no reason to add the other bit of info he has taken from the fucker, to her load.   
Knowing that the thugs here were supposed to delay the Bats as much they could, wouldn't do anything but raise the Bats hackles further. 

"Hood out." He finishes, closing the com for now. Barbara will handle the rest. 

At his feet, the goon groans in pain, unable to do much else, as Jason thinks fast.   
What he knows is not much to go on, but at least suggests that, whatever the psycho has planned, won't be immediate. If they are all lucky, the brat will stay alive and mentally sane, long enough for him to make his way to where the tracker points.

"Hold on" 

He's just about to gag the thug and keep going, when the fucker makes an stupid effort to break free, by launching himself at Jason's middle, still zip-tied. 

The impact moves him back a step, but nothing else, and only manages to piss Hood off enough that he plumbs a fist in the alphas already swollen face, definitely finishes breaking his nose, shatters the right cheekbone, and knocks him out cold again. 

"The fucker." He spits. What had the shithead been thinking, hitting an omega about to enter a heat in the abdomen?!

Instinct makes his blood boil. 

Did he know the pain it could cause?! The thought enrages Jason further, thankfully he hadn't felt much… 

That's when the realization really hits; It didn't hurt. Not really.   
"Me caguen la hostia!“ he curses as loud he dares.   
There's no pain, no discomfort, no sensitivity to be found. He feels ok, nearly back to normal. When had he stopped feeling ill? Damn, damn, DAMN!!   
He had been so focused into ignoring the pain like a pro, he didn't keep tabs on how his heat was advancing. And now he was at "That time". The eye of the storm, he calls it in his mind. That period of minutes, when the build up has reached the peak, but the heat has not broken, and everything feels back to normal, just before his body plumbs head on into the fiery depths. 

Jason shudders for a second, knowing that, with as hard as the build up has been this time, the heat would be worse than anything before. 

Time is about to run out. 

He needs to get Damian out, NOW. 

\---------------------  
Red Hood goes up the skyscraper taking goons out, one after another, like a nightmare. 

oOo 

(Damian) 

He resists, but it's like trying to move underwater. The clown too strong and his body too weak to do much, more so when each taken breath, full of rancid omega pheromones, drains his strength further. Raises his fever higher… 

He thinks he blanks out for a moment, barely registers being dragged up, being pushed into Quinn's open arms, half draped across her lap. 

Face pressed against her chest, her artificial scent into his nose, he gags again, even if there's nothing else left in him to vomit. His stomach constricts painfully trying to dislodge something that it's not there to expulse. 

He's shuddering continuously now. Feels damp, cold… it takes him a minute to understand he's cold sweating. 

"Sssh, there there, baby." Quinn hush's against his hair, pat's shootingly his back, unlikely anything mother ever did for him. 

It feels… nice. 

Wrong, WRONG, WRONG! (his instincts scream, screech, pulled into two different assessments) 

Damian twists, feverish, wants to snarl, to bite, to break her too grabby impure fingers... To encircle his arms around her. 

He can't…. his body refuses to obey, and even if it did, he's trapped with Quinn at his front, and the wiry hard chest of the monster at his back. 

It's too much, too much, TOO MUCH! 

He growls, trashes, trapped between two pulling forces. Knowing Quinn is NOT MOTHER, but feeling the pull nonetheless, is torture. Then, suddenly, long spidery fingers are closing on the back of his neck, into an unforgiven clamp.

It's a scruff, mostly used in kits, Damian recognizes the feeling, he was trained to resist such a move from the crib, is now even old enough it shouldn't affect him at all. But on the face of the hormones raging his blood, his muscles fail, whole body goes limp against the clown's omega, and is all he can do not to whimper, as Quinn purrs nuzzling him. 

oOo 

-ONE HOUR AGO-

(Dick) 

He gets the call from O, when he's returning from patrol on his bike, tired, sweaty, and about to kill for a bath.   
"Nightwing" his com activates, Babs sounds tense, way more than usual. 

"What can I do for you, O?“ he chimes in, paints a smile on his voice, tries to ease her discomfort, pushing the tiredness away for later, as he takes the next intersection that will carry him toward Gotham. For O to call him on patrol, there's usually only one reason, and that's the Bats. 

His reasoning hits true as she answers. 

"B needs your help." Oracle deadpans. Unusual, normally she would take the bait and ease some, but not today. It must be something big. 

"Of course, what's this time?“ he asks, smiling still. 

"Robin has been taken by the Joker" 

His blood turns cold. Nightwing's hand presses the accelerator to its limit. 

oOo 

(Damian) 

He can't move, can barely breathe, his skull feels about to splinter in two. Trembling, trembling… 

"Poor pup" he hears the clown intone at his back, honey false "he doesn't look too well. Think he's wet himself?"   
A spidery hand makes its way between his legs, and Damian can do nothing but grit his teeth under the mortification, until it retreats a moment later. "No, that's not it." the psycho tuts, thoughtful. 

"Maybe he's hungry?“ this time the one to talk is Quinn, her too syrupy tone racking his ears, same time his whole body shudders pleasantly. It doesn't seem to matter how ill he's feeling, how feverish and broken, he's still slipping, and all Damian can do is curse internally, grabbing at what he knows to be the truth with all his might, as he pushes the unwanted feelings away best he can. 

But with every new breath of pheromones he feels worse and worse, and so, he starts dreading the moment he won't be able to stay conscious to fight it. "Father, please, do come." he pleads silently. A testament of how lost he feels… 

"Oh, true! He must be hungry." The monster answers in mock surprise. "So then, Harley dear, why don't you feed him some milk?" 

For a second there, he can't even process the implication. 

"Sure, poor baby must be starving. Awake at this time of night." the omega purrs. 

And so, he's being gently shifted as she works to open the zip across her costume, from neck to navel, exposing an ample expanse of creamy white skin, and one of her breasts. 

His whole self recoils, Damian gags again painfully. His pulse ricochets up into a mad stakato, and he has the nerve wrecking realization he's never felt as sick as he's feeling now. Not even when undertaking mother's training into developing the most common venoms immunity, has he felt as close to breaking, as he's feeling at this moment. 

"No." he manages between strained breaths, nearly sobs into the word.   
"Come on sweety, you will feel better after some dinner, yes?“ she croons, and makes to press his face against her breast.

Chapped, cold lips, come into contact against warm flesh. He presses his teeth together, refuses with all the small strength he's lef. Doesn't even let himself contemplate the idea of biting out, afraid once it touches his tongue, he won't be able to continue keeping his mind. 

Niples are strong pheromone spots, more so for omegas. And on one that has already taken enhancers…. 

"Don't be rude with mama, pup" the clown admonishes. 

Damian tenses, knows his time is running out, when he smells it; it hits him like a fresh breath of air. Like oxygen after nearly drowning. The strong, pure, untampered with, scent, of another omega. At the moment he doesn't know if it's a consequence of having been drenched into the impure odour of Quinn for so long, or if his assessment runs true, but he's never taken in such a glorious scent. 

It's not overly sweet, as many omegas tend to smell, but just the right amount, spicy, and strong. It makes him think of the almond, cinnamon and saffron, sweets, mother used to share with him on special occasions, as accompaniment for tea. 

A treat he still treasures for its rarity and rich flavour, as well as for the fond memories attached, even if he rarely lets himself contemplate those. 

"Now now" the clown is speaking again, calling his wavering attention. "Open up, pup." and those fingers he hates, close around his jaw, intent of making him open his mouth. 

In desperation Damian grabs at the new scent with all his worth, opens himself to it fully, and let's his instincts latch into it like too much needed relief. Doesn't matter who is the omega he's tying himself to, as long as it's not the psycho's one, he can deal with it. 

oOo 

(Jason) 

The brat looks always so much older than he is, carries himself with the assuredness of an alpha trained under the shadows, speaks like one, acts like one, has the blood on his hands to prove his worth. 

Under Nanda Parbat's laws, he's an adult. 

Jason has always respected that, knows that age has little to do with being able to care for oneself.   
But when he arrives at where the tracker signals, stalking the place through the shadows, already blood painted and sweaty after fighting his way in, and sees Damian's broken, small body bloody, trapped, fighting to breathe, trembling and unable to move...how young the kid truly his stabs him in the gut like a knife. 

And that instant, what his mind knows means nothing, because nearly in heat his instincts are raw, bare, terribly sharp, and what they scream is that Damian is a CUB from his pack, and he needs him. 

Jason loses it.   
\------  
(Damian) 

"Wha..?!“ Quinn lifts her head, nostrils trembling finely with far too slow realization.. . When the vibration of a gunshot hits deafening near, and her broken scream reverberates against Damian. 

The red smell of blood blooms with the savage shape that comes from the shadows, a blur of strength and viciousness that tears him from the claws of both monsters. Metallic snarl rumbling down his bones, in wrath as heady as those of alphas in death challenge.

For an instant, Damian finds himself pressed against the hard planes of an armored chest, engulfed by the scent of almond, cinnamon and saffron, now drenched in the fiery spice of fury.   
The moment is but that, but let's his gaze fall on the bright carmine wings of a bat painted across black armour. 

Todd. 

It's Todd. 

He remembers the estranged omega father refuses to talk about, seldom seen across territory borders on patrol. A shadow hunted into the dark corners of the manor, yet still present in the shape of a room forever closen, averted gazes, and estilled words. The one who dares bear against the pack's alpha's word, by murdering those evil enough to warrant it.

The same one he knows mother took in, and trained, and kept in the luxurious privacy of her high reaching harem, until he deemed escape, but that Damian had never seen before arriving at Gotham. And even then, always in the distance. 

In all reason Todd shouldn't be here, shouldn't have cared enough to come for Damian. Yet here he is, and his presence is warm coal beneath his breast. 

The clown comes swift, retaliates, attacks at them. Todd twists, sidesteps him, puts Damian at his back, protected, and lunges himself. Robin stays on the floor, unable to even try to get to his feet, still trembling harshly with the substance pumped into his veins. However, now that he has a new scent to grab for, the fever is losing its hold, thus watching acutely as Todd goes against the monster like a hungry predator, becomes easy.

Hood fights beautifully, not in the artful way of Nightwing, but with the grace of efficiency, not a move is wasted, not a hit pulled. He reveals himself as a skilled warrior; attentive and fast, in the ragged way one who has known to fight desperately since youth, is. Strong and flexible, as father's training warrants, and above all, vicious, as one taken by the shadows must. 

His powerful attacks crippling and painful, drenched in blood lust, yet always firmly positioned between the clown and him, protective. 

And all Damian can think is; Araksurayek, omega warrior. The most coveted of omegas. 

Here, in the west, omegas are expected to be little, weak, things, beautiful for exhibition, but stupid otherwise. Always in need of guidance and protection. Pampered without merit. 

Worthless. 

In Nanda Parbat, the shadow city, omegas are wise, for they know to be the key that holds the pack. Respected, for they fearlessly keep in check the harsh tempers of alphas. 

Keep in high esteem, as an alpha can always trust his omega will do best they can for the pack, knows that even if he himself is taken down in duty, can still rest assured his mate will give life and limb for the kits. And among these, there is no deadlier protector than a harsh trained omega warrior, whose instincts and ability run in perfect sync. 

Few and far between, those omegas who take the pat of war are desired, respected beyond word, courted restlessly. For, is there any higher pride than that of knowing one who has proven skilled, intelligent, deadly, has chosen to submit to you, even if it's only on a battlefield of sheets and intercourse? Is there a more thrilling challenge but that of gaining such affection? 

Damian has seldom contemplated these matters, now he does. 

Continue


	7. Clotting Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, and welcome to the next chapter. 
> 
> Sorry for the late update, life happened, but in compensation this one comes with illustrations done by myself. Yeah, I draw too...whatever better or worse than I do writing who knows. 
> 
> Still I hope you enjoy the chapter as much as I did creating it. And if you want to see more of my drawings find me at my tumblr; Tiredalldaylong, or in my Twitter; @tyredallnightl1
> 
> Finally, thanks so much for your comments and love, you're the ones pushing me to keep creating.
> 
> Since I have gotten back my muse expect more chapters relatively soon. Two weeks? A week? Who knows, but soon. 
> 
> I cannot wait to know your opinions on this one.

(Jason)

Adrenaline rushes down his veins, green with rage, pounding inside his skull like a fucking hammer. Because seeing Robin on the floor? bloody? hurting? Sits like fire on his chest.

He doesn't think, he reacts.

Jason lets instinct and muscle memory guide him into fighting like a beast. All he was trained to be, (Robin, assassin, shadow...) rolled smoothly together for THIS. Whatever it might be; half the inhuman desire for vengeance, half the howling instinct of an omega before a wounded cub. And if the clown wasn't so terrifically fast, he would have torn his throat open that first moment they clashed.

In a small corner of his, where what's left of his conscious mind rests, he's aware of the guns tucked under his armpits; One empty, the other with three bullets left, but he doesn't reach for it, once already used to put Quinn out of the way.

Knows better than to risk it ending in the monster's hands, when the frenzied movements of the combat don't give him any good enough opening for a shot.

The knife he extracts from the hidden slot inside his boot, will have to be enough.

The appreciative, crazy smile, seeing it paints across the Joker's face, has him angling an attack mean to gut the bastard like a fish.

It doesn't take long for the fight to turn bloody.

\---------

(Damian)

Todd fights beautifully, as savage as any untamed beast, and twice as dangerous, driving the monster unmercifully further and further away from Damian's prone shape, with a ferociousness he has scarcely met before but under the breast of the deadliest and most loyal warriors under his grandfather's name.

A warning, constant, growl, (made metallic through the bright carmine helmet), racking the chest of the omega, resembling those of the alphas of his childhood memories…

That is the height of this omega's determination.

Soon it becomes obvious Todd is more skilled, stronger, and a better fighter than the monster. And yet, the clown doesn't fall under the gleam of the vigilante's knife easily.

He is snake fast, too erratic and strange to predict. A difficult shape to follow, even for the Al Ghul heir, who was trained to look for tells in the most brief of gazes, and the slightest muscle flexion, since he was old enough to stand on his own.

The aberration's spider-like limbs bend in ways scarcely reminiscent of a human being, turning the clown a blur of garish clothes, white skin the shade of brittle old bone, and that red slash of a mouth of too many teeth, Damian vows to teach the virtues of silence to, when the time comes.

The unpredictability of his movements allows the creature to meet the Hood hit by hit… forcing a situation that would only need the slightest miscalculation, to turn against the vigilante.

And yet… isn't Todd taking hits that he could have avoided?

It's difficult to ascertain in the rapid exchange of violence, but Damian has been taught to look and understand a fight in seconds...

WHY?!

The question burns inside the moment he understands what Todd is doing.

For it's not only that the omega doesn't heed the danger, ignoring the very slim thread keeping the fight in his favour… but that he's choosing to suffer unnecessary hits, if doing so will keep the clown from coming any nearer Damian himself.

The realization feels like a fever to rival the chemical one already waning in his veins.

That an omega such as this one will go so far for someone not his pack… is already staggering, that he will do so for the son of a man who has treated him as poorly as father had...is incomprehensible.

He's read most of the archives under his name kept in the database at the Cave, knows what kind of violence the vigilante is capable of, how he enacts vengeance, which path he is likely to take when confronted with hostage situations...

This… doesn't add up.

If it was vengeance, that which, in all reason, should be what had brought him here, he wouldn't had cared for anything besides, least of all Damian. They had never meet each other before, no matter their peripheral links, be it mother's or father's, so what was there to care about?

Maybe it could be the memories, the resemblance with his own situation back then; a Robin under the Joker's hand.

But even that doesn't fully pade.

Hood has attacked Robin before. Not Damian, true, but the core of the reasoning still holds.

Instinct doesn't even bear thought.

The Red Hood might be an omega, and Damian arguably a youngster in need. However, despite what western, weak, sensibilities, might try to portray, he knows better than to make such a mistake. Mother trained him too well for that.

Even this country's omegas are the same in this; they might act demure, caring, but are no less greedy than alphas in lineage matters. And no omega, be it shadow or western, would ever protect a cub not their own on instinct alone.

So WHY does Todd protect Damian to such an extent? What is there to gain?

The question might burn, but its measly flame pales in comparison to the inferno that flows his veins; scorching rage born from self-derision.

For him, Damian al Ghul, still much too weak to intervene, collapsed on the floor... vulnerable, is nothing but a _liability_ for the Hood.

Unacceptable.

The shadow heir bares his teeth, (small, still growing, alpha canines), trembling finely with the concoction flowing his veins, and starts pulling himself together.

If Todd were to be damaged for his protection, Damian would no longer look in the mirror with pride.

\--------

(Jason)

It happens so fast, he doesn't have a moment to really grasp what's coming.

Only harsh training and muscle memory keeping him alive the second he needs to regain full awareness, when the fog of rage and protective instinct lifts, suddenly, leaving his mind bare again. ..what?

"JODER!!“ Jason curses, barely managing to duck under the curved blade the clown takes out from his jacket with a deranged smile and a cheerful, screeching, call; "Surprise!"

Fuck his sadistic luck! He had to bring another knife into the fight this moment, no? (Acidic sarcasm dripping over his thoughts, as he uses his own blade to deflect the next attack coming for his thigh. The fucker sinsonging all along, a cruel, bloodthirsty rictus of a smile, painting his face).

Then, the moment of respite crashes and burns… Jason's body fails him.

He chokes on his own breath with the shock of whiplash, shivers hard, his whole self quaking about to come undone… when the river of instinct that had, a second before, pushed him into berserker rage, guided my hormones already raw and the vision of a hurt pup( that could…. would have, maybe in another life, be part of a pack he could call his) retakes the course it had intended.

The punch he was about to give falters and misses, as his knees buckle mid-run, because he needs to try to breathe, but his body has decided it's incapable of doing both at the same time.

Manages to inhale shakily...It doesn't help one fucking bit, the oxygen awakens his nerves up from normal, to iper-sensitive.

In one second flat, his heat finally STARTS UP.

\---------------

(Damian)

He fights, to climb back into trembling legs, made so by the fever still cursing his veins, despite it having been calmed much by Todd's very scent.

His chest aches, outwardly, because of the deep gashes carved across muscle and meat, inwardly, because of the cracked, if not broken, ribs, he suspects.

His palms lay open by the crystal shards of the syringe he used to free himself.

His spine might be bruising from the hit took against the floor…

Damian keeps stock, but pain, and the fresh ache of his resisting frame, get discarded, (unnecessary), while he drags himself slowly upright, further ignoring the trembling and the nausea of the fever born from the concoction in his blood, that which samples his strength, trying to make him bend.

Then, as he is finally on his feet, that scent he had been grabbing for with all his might, changes fast and so vastly, it feels like a trick of his own senses, yet, it is not.

Todd's smell, already so very pleasant, goes from soft mist, gently touching its surroundings, to an all encompassing presence, thick enough to be nearly felt at the very back of his throat, like a beverage just drank, whose flavour doesn't go away, lingering kindly for a long time.

The sensation brings to mind the strong, hearty, sage and cardamom tea, mother blended in those moments, few and far between, that they were alone, tired, obligations ended for the day, and there was nothing but their companionship and silence…

The only times Damian remembers, when they were permitted to just be, mother and son, and no other layers… no queen, no heir, no teacher or disciple.

Even now, years after, the young Al Ghul scion, now Wayne, still has nights in the privacy of his own mind, when he longs for those times….

For that calmness made taste.

There is no other tea like that of mother. No blend, made by any master that he has found, that might capture the same taste, the same myriad nuances.

Yet Todd's scent… makes him yearn.

It feels so much alike.

Damian understands, then, at the very moment Hood falters middle strike, what it is that is happening.

Todd... is in heath.

\--------------------

(Jason)

It's a liability of epic proportions, more than enough that the clown comes for him, wicked blade glinting in his hand, smirk terrible and devouring, and Jason thinks; "De puta madre" unable to duck or even try to block the slash, limbs going weak from the onslaught of hormones like a damn newborn foal, and braces for agony, and maybe, if he's really lucky, the cold of death.

Neither comes up.

He watches, breath harsh, fighting to remain on his feet, incredulous, as he feels the first dampness of slick make him nice and prepared. His cock start to fill in his cargo trousers. Nipples press agonically against hard kevlar.

The psycho has stopped moving, barely a feet away, serrated blade posed to slit Jason's throat (again, because having a batarang do that once, wasn't enough) and it's kind of funny in a seriously fucked way, watching the smile drop, those eyes he hates go wide with surprise, so open, the poisonous green of the irises catches the poor light of the two or so light bulbs in the unfinished skyscraper floor, and seem, for a moment, much more ice cream lime green, and less toxic waste hued.

Kind of like how the coiled manic nerve that always animates the crazy fucker, trembles, indecisive.

Turns out if you cut the objective of the energy out, it makes the psycho into one of those skeleton toys that bounce-dance in place on the car dashboard.

Jason doesn't stop to consider his lucky strike, when he spots, over the monster's shoulder, not two meters away at the clown's back, the hundred or so, meter drop, of the unfinished lift.

Taking what strength he has left is a near impossible effort on it's own, when his whole anatomy is breaking apart, but Jason calls the rage and hate always burning on the pit of his stomach, fuelled by Lazarus green, and kicks the fucker, still strangely dumbfounded, on the chest, and right over the edge.

Seeing the expression of the monster that had tortured him to death, as he falls, is a pleasure he doesn't have but a second to enjoy, when his body quakes, falters and stops responding altogether. 'Well, look at that' thinks as he is about to go splat over the edge too 'at least I threw the freak first'

Yet, before he does fall, a pair of slim, strong arms, wrap over his chest from his back, and pull him to safety.

**Continue**


	8. Stitching threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all finally arrive in place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so, here you have a new chapter, this time the illustrations will come later, I didn't want to wait for them to be done. But they will arrive, just give me a few days ;)
> 
> As always I will be happy to read what you think of this new chapter. This is my first time trying to write from Joker's perspective, which was very challenging, so I will appreciate your input on it.
> 
> Finally, thanks to all of you who still are here, cheering me on, you're the drive that keeps me going.
> 
> Also, you might find me in Tumblr by the name; Tiredalldaylong. And in Twitter as; @Tyredallnightl1 
> 
> Read you all soon.

(Tim) 

It's a tough fight, made worse by the unpredictable behaviour of the Scarecrow (affected by Joker toxin, now Tim knows for sure), the fact he cannot help, and how unfocused Bruce is, (it's not really a noticeable difference, he knows few will even be able to tell Batman is not doing his best, but he has been his partner for years, studied the hero way before that… and missing the slightly too controlled fighting style, the fraction of a second late responses... is not something Tim can do). 

Batman is compromised.  
Not surprising, all things considered. 

It doesn't make it any easier. 

Having to stay back and care for the toxin affected civilians, instead of helping, weights like lead in his stomach, but as Red Robin he has a responsibility. One he can't ignore, and that B will throw at him if his choices put at risk untreated innocents... 

So he ignores his own feelings and focuses on the task at hand, going at it with the single minded determination of someone who knows what's at stake, tackling people down as fast and efficiently as possible.

By the time Batman has Scarecrow finally unconscious and secured, Red has already administered the antidote to everyone in the vicinity, and it's patching the direst wounded while the ambulances arrive. 

In the back of his mind Tim keeps count; sixty seven minutes come and gone since Robin got taken.

"O, is there word from Hood?" He asks while B goes to Gordon. The commissary just arrived with half a dozen police cars ready to intervene, somewhat late, much like always, but at least they won't have to lose anymore time bringing the old teacher to the nearest police station, (ambulance sirens coming nearer by the second).

"Hood hasn't contacted again" not since she informed them about his arrival in place, the thugs, and the new kind of fear toxin they carried. It has been fifteen minutes since…

"Understood, we are on our way. Red out." he ends the call.

Nightwing will be arriving soon too if his calculations are right. Hopefully they aren't too late.  
\-----------------------

(Dick)

He pushes the motorcycle to the limit, taking turns at maddening speed, rushing toward Gotham as fast he can, while trying desperately not to think, focus on driving and nothing else. 

But despite his best efforts, Damian keeps invading his mind.  
Robin… Dick remembers those first months when the kid arrived at the manor and fell under Bruce's wing...how desperate he had been to impress his father, to show a strong, ruthless facade, that nothing seemed to penetrate… his thoughtless cruelty…his need for achievement.

Damian had been raised under the Al Ghul name, taught to discard any weakness and take what he wanted for himself, over whoever it was that stood in his way. To see those outside the pack as pieces to use, or enemies to dispose of.

At the time that had included all bats save for Bruce.

Dismantling such poisonous conditioning, and reaching to him, TRULY reaching him, had not been easy. It has taken three years now, just to show him there's people that cares for him, and will keep doing so, despite how good he performs on the field. To teach him he can stop sometimes, just enjoy himself, and no one will think less of him for that.

Dick scarcely hates anyone, that's not how his character runs, but how does he despise Talia… Painting the hands of such a young child bloody...

And now, after how much Damian had improved, after he had finally started opening up...this. 

The Joker.

What if they don't make it…

He stops the thought before it can take full root and bloom, speeding past a trailer and between it and a car, like a maniac. 

\-------------

(Jason)

So they fall backwards, following the pull of the moment, when the Demon brat (because the golden hue of the, comparatively small, arms, across his chest, cannot be anyone else's) proves unable to bear both their weights. 

Going down into the concrete floor with Robin is heads better than becoming pancake, sure, but jostling sensitive nipples against kevlar? That, not so much. 

He seizes with the sensation, pain and pleasure trailing a zapping volt of agonic electricity from chest to dick...and cunt. 

"Fuck, JODER, ME CAGUEN LA HOSTIA!" hisses, presses teeth together sharp enough to bite his tongue off, and tenses from head to toe, just to keep the wine his instincts demand, firmly shut.

Only a hoarse groan rumbling inside his chest when the stupid sensation eases some, not that his lower body is doing all that better, considering he is dripping in leather trousers, and hard as a steel rod. 

Fanfuckingtastic, just what he needs. 

\----  
(Damian)

The fall jostles his ribs, more so with Todd landing half on top of his chest; a trail of fire racking over his left side with the movement of bone shards under flesh. 

Carefully, he breathes in, judges his lung didn't puncture, and discards the momentary distraction. There are better shapes to consider, as is knowing Hood didn't meet his end over the lift shaft, and leaving this accursed place as soon as possible. 

Damian might had not seen them, but he has known by scent alone, since the very moment he awoke tied to a chair, that there must be many unknown alphas in the vicinity; thugs at the monster's service no doubt.

Any other time he would had chosen to hunt them down, extract revenge for what has been done to him, but not Todd, nor him, are in any shape for another confrontation. Best to seek treatment and gain back strength for now. Later …there will be time enough to draw blood…  
Unless Hoof has already taken care of them...

However, before he can do more than shape a word, the scent of omega in heat goes up another notch; As near they are, is like gulping it in, instead of breathing through pheromones. Missed feelings and sensations coming to mind…clogging his throat and lungs. 

The scent not only awakens long memories and resemblances, quiet longings he usually keeps locked, but stirs some latent instincts too, brushing gentle claws over his core with near silent suggestions; That he should hoard the omega as his… that no one else holds the right to lay eyes on his shape...

The call is not strong enough to impair Damian's judgement, true, easy to set aside...but the fact it did present at all, when he's still, by physical standard and nothing else (he's an adult by shadow law, has been for years now), caught in the transition between cub and adult, and a year or two away from full biological development...is worrying on it's own.  
Makes him consider the control he maintains, might be as much due to his training, as the fact he's not a fully fledged alpha as of yet. 

Dangerous.

Hood's call is outrageously intense, stronger than any other omega scent he has breathed. More potent than those wisps of heath caught drifting from his mother's harem. And even headier, more voracious, than that of Quinn, enhanced as it had been, (the chemical touch of it sore still on his nose). 

That Todd's is a natural outcome, untampered with, only makes it all the more compelling.

It's…concerning, in a way he rarely might contemplate.

There are few for whom he would care enough for, to do so. 

Yet, the implications for an omega so very desirable, in this forsaken Western country, choose to come to his mind, many, and not at all pleasant.

Alphas here don't know to value true omegas. Buffoons most of them, childish creatures unable to accept strength that doesn't belong to them. Unwilling to take partners instead of lap dogs, and doubly cruel with those unwilling to act as such.

An omega that is no weakling, a strong and capable warrior, ruthless, intelligent, vicious…. with such a strange and dumbfounding character… and his scent… would had been seen as a misfit, a threat to their own power, and a trifle to tame.

No wonder the vigilante keeps himself under so many thorny walls.

Hood is a prize worth a kingdom...and should be treated as such. That he knows he hasn't been appreciated as he should, sits like a blunt blade in his chest.

\-------  
(Jason)

He rolls to the side, and away from the brat he just squished beneath him when going down, and looks him over while Robin's still a bit dazed from the fall, he supposes, going by how he has fallen quiet.

The brat looks like a grater took a liking to his chest, and the bruises over his left side kinda shape like cracked ribs, but he seems functional, which is good, because Jason is coming down with the mother fucker of all heath fevers, and doubts he has all that much time left before completely losing it. 

Great, just great.

At least he can make sure baby bat gets out of this before the psycho catches him again. Because let's be real, if dropping the Joker one hundred meters had been all that was needed to end him, the fucker would had been dead for years now. 

Most probable situation? The freak found a way to survive the fall, is wounded but kicking, and depending on how fucked from it, still searching for fun, or escaping to his last hideout, wherever that is.

He would pray for the second, but with his shitty luck, the clown has only a sprained wrist, found a bomb on the way, and is dancing back up the skyscraper like this is a fucking waltz saloon.

"Hey," he calls for the brat's attention.

\-------------

(Damian)

Hood rolls and faces him, and it's all he can do to keep his tongue and not ask useless questions. This is not the time, much he would had liked to be able to, at least, look at the face under the bright carmine helmet. 

That way he might had known to catch a sliver of some answer in his expression; About why he would come for Damian and in such a vulnerable state, and how he had done so without wearing any scent blockers, (but maybe that one could be explained by his timely arrival), about him... 

Later, Damian promises himself, Todd is calling for him.

Not the time to be lost in thought.

"Yes?" answers as he pulls himself somewhat back upright with minimal resistance of his fevered limbs.  
Hood's scent seems to be easing the concoction's effect, which is good. Doubts he would had been able to walk otherwise.  
\------‐---------------

(Jason)

Jason takes out the one revolver he still has with some ammunition left, and offers it to Robin handle first. In the condition the kid is right now, a knife won't help shit (Hand to hand combat when you can barely stand up? Yeah, bad choice.).

"Here, it has three bullets left." doesn't ask if he knows to use it. The brat is Talia's son, if he doesn't already know how to shoot with any available gun on the market, and some experimental ones to both, Jason is eating his dirty socks.

Sure enough Damian takes the weapon without a word and checks it; chamber, safety, and mechanism, in quick succession, thorough and precise. Movements that feel natural in the way only things you have done until they become instinctive, are.

Beautiful. 

He has met shooters going at it for years, that don't show half the grace the latest Robin just flashed when handling his gun. 

Talia might be a bitch at times, but when she teaches you learn, and do it perfectly, so Godess helps her sweet dark heart. 

"Listen, the psycho is alive. How do I know? Life experience." drawls sardonically. Funny how that's actually true. If there's someone who has been under assassination attempts more than a few times, that's the clown. 

Some vigilantes, quite the number of police officers, vengeful family members, and hell, even most other villains, would love to get a bullet, knife, or the odd axe, at his heart. Not that Bruce will let Jason, or anyone else, for that matter, actually go for it. But even without his help, it's frankly frustrating the amount of occasions the fucker has survived things that should had killed him for good.

They say the Demon holds the ropes of luck. Seems it must be some truth..

Robin tilts his head just so, opens his mouth as if to speak, and Jason knows he's been rambling inside...No good. 

Hood pulls himself back into the, so far, one sided conversation.

"Shut up and listen." Cuts any questions before they even come. No time when he's losing focus by the second.

"I left a line set at the north side of the third floor. Down in the alley is my bike. Here" throws the keys from his inner pocket at Robin, and the kid snatches them from the air like a fucking, Harry Potter, seeker. "Take it and go back to batdad before the clown catches sight of you..." His breath goes suddenly short, forces him silent for a second, while he takes in a sharp mouthful of oxygen, just to try and control the shivers that start wanting to rake over his whole body... 

It hurts like a bitch, denying the instincts making to convince him how wonderful would be to just roll over and croon for an alpha to hurry up and take him hard, but Jason pushes back with every inch of his hollyfucking frustration about the situation, and manages to put them back under control with a shudder, and a screech of over sensitive muscles.

Goddamn heath fever. 

He's losing it fast… TOO fast, and too hard.

It's not… normal, not even for him, but he doesn't have the time to worry about it.

"Ok, here's the thing" hisses out through the helmet's voice modulator, short of thankful it hides any weak notes that might make it pass his hold "if the psycho finds you on the way out, shoot to kill." Snarls, tries to press the point home. Because if he doesn't, and Robin falters at the wrong time, the kid is dead... or worse, and he doesn't have enough left in himself at the moment, to make sure babybat makes it in one piece.

"Don't try to run, he's too fast, and you're falling over like a wilting leaf." Bulldozes over the bite he can see building in the prideful kit. "Don't let him into striking distance either, he will kill you. So do yourself a favor; take a page from your mom's family side, and shoot him in the head. Takmun quat al'usrat, mithl quat aljaysh,.." (The strength of a family, like the street of an army,...)

\--------

(Damian)

"...walayiha libaediha albaed, waldamu aldhy yuridun 'iiraqatah." (...,is in its loyalty to each other, and the blood they are willing to spill.) For a moment, at Todd's disrespectful words, he had felt irritation, the first spark of anger that always bites at him when his pride is put to test.  
However, hearing the Al Ghul prayer, on his lips, uttered in the language of the Shadow city…Home, breaks over his childiness like a thin blade to his very heart.

In the frenzy of the last minutes, he did forget for a moment… that Hood is not only of western blood, but raised, his second life, anew, under mother's wing and the red, scorching, sands of Nanda Parbat. 

A true Araksurayek, unorthodox he might be… a jewel worthy of the highest respect, that had saved his life, risking so much of himself in turn.

Robin feels ashamed. 

What right does he have to find fault with his words, even if they are crude? That is Todd's privilege, for having done as he has, to keep his own heart, his own council, when dealing with Damian.

Worse even, is finally grasping the meaning behind his demands.

"You're not leaving with me" not a question. 

‐------------------  
(Damian/Jason)

"No, I'm not." Jason answers, already feeling his remaining control weaken by the second. 

Not trembling in need is hard enough, (the pain racking his muscles, just for that, burns like flesh eating acid), getting up, walking? Yeah, as likely as a nice sunny summer in Gotham. No way in hell. 

Damian recognizes the telltale signs now that he's watching. Todd's heat is eating at his strength and mind… knows in the nearly, fully, concealed traces, of pain, across the omega's scent. In the paleness of his sweaty flesh… The very way his shoulders are set, forced to remain straight, but shivering so very delicately, that if Robin had not been looking for it, he wouldn't had seen. 

Worse yet, if he had not witnessed the fight just now, he might had thought nothing of it.

But he had seen, and he knows.  
That Hood is strong enough to take a high share of damage without complaint nor flinch. Therefore, that he has been brought so low by mere heath… means his isn't any ordinary one. 

Heath doesn't make omegas physically weak to such an extent. 

The fact this one clearly does, and the incredible potency of Todd's scent...

Is he Overdriven? (Wonder, worry, and ultimately, impotence) Damian cannot keep the thought from his mind, but it is easier to keep it from his tongue. 

There is little to be said, even if his suspicions hold true. 

Todd is not fit to move. Damian is in no condition to carry him. 

The knowledge shears his entrails; to leave Hood alone in such a weakened state...to abandon him when he is at his most vulnerable… but offering the gun back, trying to stay, would only humiliate the fierce omega.

Jason sees the way the brat twists his mouth into a dark rictus, how his fists close onto near white knuckles… and has honest to God reminiscences of Bruce when he falls into his classical self-blame, worry and impotence, ball of glee, (seriously, Batman must love to feel like shit, going by how often he dips on that one). 

"What are you waiting for? A goodbye kiss? Go!" There. Some mocking should do it.

Right on clue Robin straighten's. But funnily enough, he doesn't sneer back

"I will bring help." Informs him, as if Jason needed some kind of reassurance… he cannot see the kid's gaze behind his domino mask, but it feels...kinda intense, the way he stops and looks, before he leaves, gun in hand.

Strange that kid…  
Now let's call Roy. Hopefully his taking over Jason's territory doesn't have him too tied up to answer the phone. 

Better yet, maybe if Jason sounds pitiful enough, his best mate won't chew him out like gum, for not bringing him in from the very start. 

\-----------

Down, some floors below, there are fresh scratches inside the lift shaft, purple chips of painted nails and bloody fingerprints, dragging to a stop, and then, into another, unfinished, office…

\----------  
(Dick)

Gotham's roads, like always, trap into jams anyone that tries to navigate them between dusk and dawn.  
Good that Dick knows how to bypass actual streets by catching tight, trashy, alleys, and the occasional sidewalk.

Then, two blocks from the blinking dot on his hub, Nightwing sees the batmobile. 

His channel goes on with a hiss of static.

"B, Red, I'm right behind you."

\-----------

(Roy) 

That last thug had been carrying a handmade mini bomb. What da fuck were those drug boys doing to need that?! 

Jay was right to warn him.  
A...Roy gave a sigh. Now his new vest laid scorched, and his phone, that had been on the inside pocket, met ultimate death.

"I'm gonna have ya all pay for a new one." Informs the dozen, or so, unconscious, drug dealers, at his feet, before crouching down to start rummaging inside their clothes.

\---------  
(Joker)

I lay on the floor, purple spread around in a bed of folds, eyes closed to better see. Ah, you tingle like a bubbly drink in my nose, dripping sweet and spicy flavour. 

Ah… such strange, mystifying, MARVELLOUS, sensation… like tasting but with nose instead of tongue, and much more intense…

You have spread goosebumps all over my skin...and the urge to smile, SMILE, my wonder takes me;

"Ah, thy scent I had not known before, thou little red bat. You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be spurned for another or to do whatever I have to. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too. (James Joyce modified)" I declaim, I recite…I CRAVE. 

Continue


	9. Illustration for chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illustration for chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illustration for the chapter 8. Used honey as association with slick, for stickiness and sweetness.   
Hope you like it.  
Comments would be appreciated


	10. 9-Delirium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again with a new chapter. 
> 
> This time I'm warning about a change in tags, I know I said there wasn't going to be any suffering from Jason's part at the Joker's hands, but, the clown seemingly decided to do as he pleased, so...sorry beforehand. 
> 
> However, this is a hurt comfort type of fic and there will be a happy ending. Just warning that I cut this chapter short so anyone who doesn't want to read short of rape scenes has the occasion to enjoy it and turn tail before the next one.
> 
> That said, this one is still safe to read, but next one keep in mind might be hurtful for your sensibilities. 
> 
> Other than that, if you're on it, happy to have you here, and wishing you all a great time reading. 
> 
> The drawing is my second try in like ten years at digital painting so, still in need of improvement, but I hope you like it. 
> 
> Kisses and thanks to you all for pushing me on.

(Jason)

After Robin leaves, he calls Oracle, goes straight to the point with no nice detours for socialization. Jason's starting to feel ill enough prioritizing time saving becomes necessary, might need those few minutes of actual conscious decision capability, not that he's usually much nicer to the bats on principle; 

"O, the kid is free and on the way, maybe with the clown on his trail…" gets short of breath for a second, caught by the vice around his lungs that makes inhaling oxygen difficult, but he shoulders through it "...tell the batband they might want to keep an eye on that."

The sound of key tapping stills, alert.

Damn, he's talking to Oracle, arguably the smartest and most observant of the family, of course she notices the catch on his speech pattern; "What about you? Do you.." she tries to ask. Jason hangs up. Maybe not the best decision, to cut out one of his limited sources of help, but he doesn't have the time for that conversation, and more than anything else, he doesn't want to explain the mess of his own biology to her. 

Too much trust to put on someone part of the stranged pack he's actively been trying to avoid, for years now.

But he does have one good friend. 

With any luck Roy will be here before any bats manage to arrive, (even if appearing at the worst of times, and after the party is already over, is kind of their thing). 

But first he needs to move from the open spot next to the lift shaft, to somewhere he won't be so much of a sitting duck. Which is a pain in the ass when his whole body feels like overheated jelly.

Fucking heat.

Jason ends up dragging himself around on too raw muscles and hypersensitive skin, until it feels like his flesh is going to peel from it's attached bones, fried crispy from need and frustration. Or, you know, like he's going to do the traditional thing and just point out collapse. 

In the end he manages to drop behind a half finished wall, and into a smaller space that looks like an office to be, out of sight, and mostly under cover, so he's willing to call the whole enterprise a success.

Then he calls his archer.

**oOo**

It's been ten minutes and Roy is not picking up; there's this annoying robotic female voice clip saying it's disconnected, (or something equally dooming for his chances of getting out of here without the bats's help), playing everytime he tries to grab a hold of him. 

Which is worrying both for Roy, since the archer never offs his phone in case of emergency, (Something must has happened to put the thing off), and for Jason.

He's been in rougher spots, nothing beats digging your way out of your own coffin. Yet, being alone, dripping slick on his cargo pants while a psycho might, or might not, be roaming the building, all along feeling as bland as boiled spaghetti? It kinda plays like he might be royally fucked up right now.

To make it all the better, the demon brat knows he's in heat, ( the kid's injuries would had to be way more disabling for a growing alpha not to catch up to the fact), so the rest of the gang is going to be on it, too, the moment they meet. 

How humiliating will be, if the guys he's been avoiding and tried to kill in the middle of a psychotic break, have to fucking princess carry him to his own den? 

Luckily, that will only happen if the clown doesn't come up here first, and kills him, _ again _, at his most vulnerable. Not that the mortification wouldn't work just as well.

None of his choices look all that great. On the other hand life never has had any habit of throwing easy ones his way to begin with. So at least he's still on track. 

….

It hits that he's rambling his mind off. 

Feels like he should worry about that...maybe. But heat fever is settling in nicely, and thinking hasn't been as easy as it used to be even before baby bat left, so he kinda registers the fact as one more pilling drop of shit, and chooses to feel grateful that at least the helmet filters keep any scent from making it to his lungs. 

In the state he's fallen into, one sniff of an alpha and Jason would drop into bitch blankness like a coin in a whisky glass; to the bottom.

_ Great _ how an omega suffering from a heady enough heat, can actually lose their mind for the duration, bending for whoever alpha chooses to play the part. 

Not rape at all. Kinda difficult to blame someone for taking what was actually being offered. Or so the justice system insists on sprouting. Personally, Jason finds that he can, and has already _ blamed _to death a few of those. 

One of those stances B and him cannot agree on. 

The Bat would prefer a kinder, neatly packed, case; gain evidence and present it to the police, see if a nice enough judge chooses to send the rapist to prison for a few months or so, only for the guy to be back out like nothing's even happened in less than a year. 

While the terrorized omega has to go through years of therapy at best, suicide if things go really bad end. Life gone down the drain and no justice to sweeten the fall (Jason's meet a few of those. Hard not to when you're raised in Gotham's slums), the least they deserve is to be able to sleep, knowing the monster who did that, is no longer alive to hurt anyone else. 

Batman might preach about redemption and second opportunities, and maybe that has something to do with having the kind of sheltered childhood money can buy, that he has gotten to retain some sliver of faint for a better outcome. But Jason has never known any better, and experience has shown him over and over again, that meaningless faith tends to get you killed, or worse. 

There's a public registry for a reason.

When there's a rabid dog you put it down; you don't shove some training its way and let it go under the pretense he might not bite anyone this time around. 

Then again, thinking about rabid dogs reminds him about the one most likely still somewhere in the vicinity; the actual walking proof of his point. A psycho impossible to rehabilitate, who keeps slaughtering and ruining lives. 

If Jason had his way the Joker would had been two feet underground for years now, and then he wouldn't be expending the first stage of his heat into a fuckin construction site, instead of at his nest with a thick as his forearm dildo between his thighs. Maybe baby bat would even have a better time of being Robin than he was getting. 

But no. 

Bruce was an asshole. 

…. and Jason was losing it too fast. 

He keeps rambling, losing focus of the situation. 

A thick coat of sweat has now worked it's way under the armour, leather, and cotton, Jason threw over himself before coming, drenching his clothes and sticking them to his already pretty sensitive flesh. An obvious consequence of the furnace that has taken over his guts, where it's starting to feel as if someone put the horniest, hellisht, coal, under the idea there will be a dick out there ready to put the fire out with the magical power of sex. 

Which, for the record, there isn't. And even if there was, Jason's not letting any alpha fuck him. 

He can deal with the heat on his own, no matter it's so hot even his hair is fucking curling damp under the helmet. 

Not that he hasn't experienced worse, body sanitation wise, but hell, sweat is supposed to help lower body temperature, and his is getting hotter the more he transpires instead of easing like a sensible physical reaction. 

Every brush of cloth and slide of sweat drop over skin, is a nightmare going straight to his dick and cunt. His nipples so hard, having the chest plate on not only fucking hurts, but is fast becoming unbearable. 

At least now that Robin is gone he doesn't have to maintain the facade of the calm, kinda responsible, adult, because keeping the trembling mostly off his limbs became impossible two minutes ago or so.

Knows he's shaking like a newborn kitten.

The way thing are going right now...not good. Fucking epic catastrophe level not good.

"Fuck. Roy, pick the damn phone" he really, really, doesn't want to call Oracle back for help...might have to anyway.

**oOo**

(Tim) 

They park before the skyscraper construction site not bothering to keep their arrival discrete. 

Hood is supposed to be inside, so even if it wasn't so clearly a trap, whoever else is there besides the Joker will already be on guard. No point in losing time by going in stealthily. 

He follows Batman down from the batmobile, silently, same moment the Wingcycle skips to a stop by their side. Bruce hasn't talked since they mounted, speeding down roads like a nightmare, so obviously focused on arriving as fast as possible, Tim choose to keep the lack of communication.

If B was taken by driving fast and the skills involved for them to not crash, he wasn't caught in all the possible nightmarish scenarios they might find when arriving. 

"Nightwing," Batman greets him. 

While Tim, still a feet back, does a double take. Dick has all the tells of having come right after a long and harsh night patrol; shoulders a bit less straight than usual, and movements a tad slower than normal, tired. The state of his uniform doesn't hide much either; he looks filthy. But at least there are no debilitating wound signals that he can see, so he must be well enough for this. 

"B, Red. Do you have news..?" Dick asks, despite knowing O would had called him if it was the case. Tone serious, controlled, so unlikely Dick's usually playful one, the worry behind it feels like a bleeding wound. It's the same defense mechanism Bruce uses against emotional pain that hits too close.

"No." Batman denies, and the resemblance is impossible to miss. "Put on the filtering mask, Nightwing, there's danger of Joker toxin inside."

They get a few more words in, planing for the assault...

There's a second were the logical, predominant, part, of Tim's brain, considers the possibility they shouldn't be fighting someone as dangerous as the Joker when not at the top of their game (both B and him are exhausted too after the fight with the Scarecrow, and the emotional bias of the other two alphas can prove distracting at the worst time), but ultimately there's no alternative. Damian needs to be rescued before it's too late. 

And Jason… he doesn't know what they might find when they meet him. What if the trauma of meeting the Joker again, in a situation similar to the one that killed him, pushed Hood again into pit madness? 

They…

Oracle opens their shared channel.

"Red called and Robin is free, but the Joker might still be chasing him, so be careful."

"Is Hood Ok?" Tim asks before he can even think about it. Chest tight for reasons he's not willing to look at now, when there's too much on play.

There's a second of thoughtful silence, considering. 

"... sounded like he was having a difficult time talking." She answers in the end. Then Oracle falls into Barbara's softer accent, something there, worry, perhaps, when she asks next; "Check on him, please" 

**oOo**

(Jason)

He tries to keep it, but the fever falls from bad to insane too fast to even track the way it all goes to hell. 

One moment he is mostly in control, next it feels like his nerve endings are going to fry like crispy bacon. He's distinctly, painfully, aware, of how empty he is, how fucking hard, how drenched in leather trousers that feel like a chastity belt he needs to take out right now.

The chest plate he's wearing doesn't feel that better, kinda gets to mind those corsets on every victorian production. Nipples, damn it all, shouldn't be constrained like some fucking botanic project that needs to be perfectly dried and _ pressed. _

To top it all his body temperature keeps rising, making him sweat like a roast and breaking his breath into stuttery pants that try, ineffectively, to lower the fever. Jason would strip if it were safe, if he were in his den, but he's not, so cheers.

There's too, the possibility of the Joker being around, repeating again and again across his mind.

Funny how that's the only thing keeping him somewhat aware on the verge of heath fall. Adrenaline has the advantage of keeping back the worst of the hormone cocktail raging his veins, blunting the sharpest angles. 

But it won't hold forever, and it has side effects; fragmented memories keep bubbling up and compromising his hold on what's real and what's not, (creepy high pitched laughter, and the distinctive phantom pain of fresh broken bones…). 

There wasn't anyone to come for him then, when he was at his weakest, and Roy is not answering his phone this time either. There's too much of a symmetry in it, that he doesn't like. Keeps racking his brain with ugly feelings.

Jason's not panicking, not yet, but he's getting there. Somehow, he's trembling so hard the blade on his fist rattles against the concrete of the half finished wall he's slumped against. 

Not such a hiding spot if he keeps making noise, but he can't beat his muscles under control anymore.

Suddenly, there's another sound behind the brick barrier, something like a scruff of shoes, like leather against concrete, the kind of footwear the Joker likes, and Jason knows there's no way whoever that is, didn't hear him already. 

The memories he's been deliberately ignoring rush at him anew like a punch to the cranium, (time counting down on little, red, digits, and the last, desperate, understanding, that brings knowing he can't get away, and he can't save himself or anyone else....and no one is coming to help.) 

This time panic and desperation choke hold his fucking breath, push pride and dignity to the back seat while they take the driving well.

He calls.

**oOo**

(Oracle)

"...Barbara." - the sound is barely there, a breath, harsh, drawn out, painful. "...I... help."

Jason never calls her if it's not about work, never uses her real name, as if it was a barrier to settle between them. Even if she is the only one of the pack he talks to, there's always that distance. The ultimate understanding they are not of the same family anymore. So to hear him call her like this… obviously wounded and in need...

"Jason," she falls back to old habits tied to a teenager Robin that was too feisty and too aggressive, and entirely too kind for his own good, like worrying about him biting more than he can chew, and using his real name. Soft in the way she had been keeping from him from the very moment he tried to kill Tim, raspy and comforting with everything he meant… still means, for her. 

Old regrets rear their heads too; If only they had known at the time to look better, to understand he had come back gone on Pit madness… they might had kept their little brother. Helped him recover. 

But it had been a mess. Jason had tried to kill Bruce, their pack leader, and worse, their youngest at the time too. 

Those actions sparked the protective instincts of all the pack, like fire to oil. No one took into consideration how it might feel to come back from the dead and find your murderer alive, seemingly uncatched, and the place you had held among them gifted to someone else.

It's no wonder that after all those bloody fights, even if everything came to light, and Jason recuperated, lines were drawn, resentments difficult to settle for all involved kept going on. 

And even she had thought it was no use to overstep when the peace won was so frail already.

Now, with the pained plead of her lost little brother on the speakers… It feels like she should have done more to mend the gap.

"I'm sending your coordinates to the others. They are on site, so help is coming soon." She tries to sound calm, reassuring, but there's no way Jason was calling if he wasn't heavily wounded. "You just keep awake, talk to me…" what if is dying, alone all over again?

There's a sound, like a gasp of pain, and then, the distinctive crash of something hitting against the helmet. 

"Jason, JASON!" 

Static.

**oOo**

(Dick)

They move into the site in tandem, spreading over the place in fan formation without losing sight of each other, but at a reasonable enough distance that means they can check more terrain, without letting any of them open to an attack. 

With the Joker around it's better to stay together, even if the time lost scraps at his flesh like sand. 

They are fast, not bothering to check the unconscious men they find on the way, Hood's marks all over the place; broken bones, bashed in skulls, and sliced tendons, but no one dead. Dick finds that's all he cares about, when these men participated in taking his littlest brother. Whatever else Jason has done sits right on his bones, even if he will never tell him. 

There's enough violence festering in Jay to nurture more of it. Not that he would have had the occasion had he wanted to, Jason doesn't talk to Dick. Or any male in the family really. 

It's something he regrets and has been trying to make better, without much success…usually he would be cherishing the possibility of meeting him again, even in the middle of a mission, but he's too full of Damian and worry now, too tense and wrought up to keep giving more of himself away. 

They move steadily up, floor after floor, toward the blinking point of the locator that means Robin is nearby. He's advancing too, much slower than them, but steadily, so chances are he's not heavily wounded. 

Hope biting bright at his insides, alongside the fear that had been eating at him since he was told about Damian's abduction, they turn another corner.

**oOo**

(Jason)

He's twisting before he identifies what's really happening, before the impact has fully settled in. Usually he would have had the knife buried between two of the ribs of the attacker by then too, find all the soft spots that hurt the worst. But he's disoriented, edge taken by fever, panic, and needneedneedneed.. A fucking mad chant of mixed signals he can't turn off. Not when he's burning from the inside out. 

He's panicking. 

Jason knows that, hell, has his blood pressure hammering up to red warning flag levels, but he cannot corral the feeling away the way he would usually do, with violence and rage. The green of the pit has been refusing to grab hold of him for some time now, ever since heath truly settled in. 

Maybe the hormones are blunting the emerald fire with other type of flame, but Jason doesn't care so much about the reason, as he cares for the way he can't keep his muscles from trembling, failing…

There was a scuffle of shoes on the floor, and then he's being attacked, and Jason SHOULD had heard something else before that, even if he couldn't see behind the half finished brick wall hiding him, but he didn't, he spaced out. Lost track of what was happening, and what wasn't, means his mind is blinking on and off, sinks in the whole expanse of the understanding that he's entirely too compromised.

'Im _ fucked _' he thinks, over the mad staccato of his own heartbeat, and it feels like that first death is gonna replay itself again, get Jason a second act of the same bullshit but with the added chorus of heat this time. 

There's a flash of poisonous green and brittle bone fless, when the second impact lands. Jason keeps losing footing on what's real and what's not, and he's trying to fight back, but he doesn't know if his hits are even landing. 

Then, there's that laughter, high and deranged, that haunts his nightmares, entirely too close, and his mind screeches into panic blackness for a moment, and what muscles are still reactive block themselves in useless paralysis, like a fucking fox before a car. 

Usually when he's trapped Jason trips into fighting with the kind of viciousness that means he might be taken down, but there will be too many dead and broken body parts to make it worth the effort for the ones coming for him. 

That doesn't happen this time.

Maybe is the heat forcing his instincts more pliable, or the panic chewing his guts to bloody bits. He doesn't care, he doesn't need to know why, what he needs is to shake back into himself before there's a second tombstone with his name out there. Or not. Maybe Bruce will repurpose his old one, save himself the expenses, even if it will be a shitty thing to do. Jason hates the thing, would prefer to be cremated if things came to that. At least he wouldn't be facing the possibility of waking in his own coffin a second time over. Got sufficiently fucked up the first time. 

It's only a moment, but is enough, by the time he manages to catch his breath, Jason can't see anything, the helmet being yanked out of his head catching and distorting his vision. The clown is grabbing, pulling viciously, while his lungs seize under the terrible notion he's about to get an unfiltered breath of air, in a place he knows, had been visited by a dozen alphas at least, this last day. 

Little as the residue might be, the way he's feeling...it might be the last straw his fragile hold over himself needs to break down. 

That's when his instincts finally fall somewhat right again, and his muscles unlock from paralysis to fight or fly responses. 

Jason FIGHTS like a savage, wounded, animal, it's not even a choice. It's a _ visceral _ reaction. He NEEDS to save himself, because no matter what Barbara said just now, soft, and sweet, in his ear before the connection hit cut by an impact none of them saw come, there's never been anyone else. 

Jason forces his muscles to act, brings the knife to play with the kind of viciousness Bruce hates, the same moment his helmet finally gives and gets taken away. Fresh air hits his face, but at least he can see now. 

There's the Joker, perched by his side like the embodiment of all his nightmares, grinning big and deranged, throwing his helmet away like trash. Jason doesn't stop to consider anything else, he goes for the throat, The clown moves, too fast, but the knife still manages to slash his collarbone, deep, to the bone, feels the vibration up to his elbow, but it's not a killing hit, and Jason knows nothing short of that would get the clown to back down, ever. 

So despite the blood painting his hand to the wrist, blooming dark on the garish shirt, he reels for a second try…

That's when the smell HITS him like a fucking truck to the solar plexus, and he losses the momentum. It's not even all that strong, more like a leftover accent, a spicy earthy odour, nice, but still too soft, a thing in the brink of alpha but not quite yet. Hell, it's not even all that present, dissipating with every second the one responsible is gone. 

Robin. Jason thinks, but it's a fleeting realization, because he doesn't have the time for it. It's not even a full alpha's scent but it doesn't seem to matter to his overactive heat. 

He feels it happening in slow motion, the way a car accident happens, something you can see coming, but cannot for the the life of you stop, like a walking nightmare sinking his brain beneath a too deep, dark, sea. 

His muscles go jelly bland, relax unnaturally, ready to comply, to take anything an alpha might want to do with him, no matter how pissed or panicked he feels. The knife falls from his limp fingers, clatters against concrete. Jason gets the impression he's collapsing, falling down, strings cut like a broken marionette, but he doesn't. 

Wiry arms stop the fall. It's a fucked up play, the laughing stock of all those romantic shows deciphering a languid omega fainting on the strong alpha's arms. 

His skin crawls like broken nails getting stuck on entirely too sensible epidermis, and the Clown is sifting him, cradling him against his chest, like Jason is some kind of precious that needs to be handled delicately. 

Blood paints the side of his face, where it gets pressed against the wound he just inflicted. The scent of copper against his nostrils hides Robins scent, but it's entirely too late.

Meanwhile the monster is hushing him, like Jason might need some calming down. It's utter bullshit, and doesn't make any sense, not the poisonous green of those eyes caught on his face with something a bit like adoration, (if adoration came wrapped in strobic lime light and shrinked, predatory, pupils), not the lopsided, too soft for the angular face, smile, directed his way.

"There there, red batty, I'm here, everything's good." Jason wants to throw up. 

'The fuck it is!' Bites out on his mind, incapable of shaping any word when his brain's hold on anything real is going down the drain. But hopes pushing what hate he can on his expression will carry the point across. 

He's breathing too fast, hyperventilating, heart rate shot to hell, and the worst of it all is that he cannot stop the terrible shivers of pleasure having someone else against him awakens.

"Hush, hush, darling. You're shaking so hard…" The Joker murmurs, discordant sweetly, running ruined fingers (broken nails and bloody digits) across Jason's hair.

So very near, _ too _ near, and still the psycho smells like nothing but spilled blood, a bit like the softener used on his clothes.. and nothing else. No scent of his own. No nothing. 

Jason tries to reign his body under control uselessly, his muscles don't answer, just trembling, trembling; with fear, with want, with nausea and scorching hate, and _ memories _. 

His instincts go spiraling down. Because he's being held which is something his omega wants, but the one doing it is a monster that doesn't even smell like alpha, doesn't smell like anything. It fucks his natural responses up, not having anything to understand or answer to. 

A cruel tease that twists his instincts even worse. He's burning to cinders inside out…

His mind, stressed to limits, gets bulldozed by another heath wave, and thinking is nothing he can do anymore.

Jason trips into heat blankness.

**oOo**

(J.)

What fight had been on the Red Bat bleeds out suddenly, tension leaving the muscled body that goes soft and pliable on his arms. The smell, for it can only be that, tickling his nose and throat like a delicate feather, turns stronger, raising goosebumps along his arms. 

It's magnificent, the very sensation of it, the way he can pick information just by breathing. Feels like magic, like some impossible spell.

Overtaken by wonder J buries his nose on the sweat damp hair of his, HIS now, red bat, and inhales deeply; enjoys the not taste of lemon treacle tart, his favourite dessert, on the back of his palate and the inside of his nostrils, marvelling at the very strange feeling that is smell. 

His very first, truly caught, scent, after a lifeline of nothing but the faintest of traces, and usually not even that much.

"So this is how it feels." He muses aloud, giggling to himself for the breathtaking present bestowed on him. An omega he can truly scent, all his own. 

His gaze catches on the one in his arms; strong mandible and nose, full lips, and even the small white streak on his dark hair, are all to his liking. "Look at that, you're quite the handsome one, are you not?" Traces with a bloody crooked finger, nail and bone broken to bits, his features, catching softly at the edge of the domino mask hiding his gaze.

He hums, considering. 

Usually he would never spoil his own fun by revealing the biggest surprise. Knowing who is behind the mask must be so very boring, what thrill is there if he has all the easy cards in the game? But this time it doesn't feel as much a spoil, as an even bigger present. This is _ his _ omega, after all, and meeting him, catching his gaze, and whatnot may be in there, is something, the moment he thinks about it, that he can't wait to see. 

So J slides his broken nails under the polymer, feels his darling shake harder, breath ragged, in reflex, and rips it of. 

Teal, that's what first takes root, and then, beautiful, because _ he _ is. The gaze meeting his is all dopey, gone, dropped to heat bottom, too overtaken by hormones to even understand what's happening, and still, there's that trace of something else. Something like subdued fire. 

So beautiful. 

And so perfect, that they might meet when the omega is so very affected. 

After all, to have his mate looking at him with hate wouldn't had been romantic. This is J's very own fairytale, the first he's ever gotten, and maybe the only one he will get, so it needs to be perfect. Wants to treasure it, to PROTECT it, so it doesn't ever end.

"Who would had thought it would be you?" Asks mistified, caressing a stubble rough cheek, sliding, slowly, a thumb over those moisty lips. "Should we share our first kiss?"

**Continue**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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